The Human Resources Manager (2010) Reviews

• Is it a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy?

  Red-1252011-07-26

  The Human Resources Manager (2010), directed by Eran Riklis, is a film that starts off with the death of a Romanian immigrant in Israel. Although her death was not work-related, an investigative reporter--"The Weasel"--decides to publicize the case as an example of the cold-hearted approach of the company to its employees. (The company officials did not realize that she had died.) To counteract the negative publicity, the human resources manager is sent to accompany the body to Romania, and to arrange for burial. Of course, The Weasel shows up in Romania as well. Naturally, complications ensue. The complications make up the real plot of the film. The HR Manager is out of his element, doesn't speak Romanian, and is a Jew among Christians. He is trying to act in good faith, but personal problems, mechanical problems, and religious problems continue to obstruct progress. This isn't a bad film, but it's somewhat formulaic, and not always very funny. The acting is good, especially that of Mark Ivanir as the HR manager and Guri Alfi as The Weasel. There are some humorous moments, but the grim, unhappy moments outweigh them. This wasn't really a memorable film for me. It's worth seeing if it comes your way, but I wouldn't seek it out. We saw it at the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival, in the wonderful Dryden theater at George Eastman house. However, there's no reason it shouldn't work as well on the small screen.

• A Nicely Balanced Movie

  MadTom2012-02-26

  The title Human Resource Manager of this movie has a task thrust upon him, completely unforeseen and probably not in his or any other HR Manager's job description. A female employee of his company, the largest bread bakery in Jerusalem, is killed in a terrorist attack, under circumstances which bring an embarrassing public relations nightmare to the company. The deceased woman was a recent immigrant from Romania (the actors who play her relatives speak Romanian, but the country is never actually named, only identified as a former communist country in Eastern Europe), and the owner of the bakery sends the HR Manager to escort the body to her homeland. Tagging along on the journey is the same muckraking photojournalist (known to the audience as "The Weasel") who brought the bad PR upon the bakery in the first place. This movie could have taken any of a number of different tracks without any change in the plot line, in which the HRM encounters several bureaucratic or emotional obstacles upon arriving in Romania and meeting with local officials, the Israeli consul, and the teenage son and ex-husband of the deceased, all the while hoping to make this a short trip to get home in time to chaperone a school trip for his own neglected teenage daughter, and clashing with "The Weasel". Had this been an American movie, I have could easily pictured it done as a "road/buddy" comedy, a rather slippery slope down which this movie could have descended to a bonehead movie a la A WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S. At the other end of the spectrum, I did in fact see this movie as part of the Film Movement foreign film subscription series shown at a public library. I'm rather new to that series, and this movie was the third I'd seen. The first two were totally depressing: ILLEGAL, which showed the suffering of a Russian woman illegally in Belgium and undergoing deportation and separation from her teenage son, and THE COLOR OF THE MOUNTAIN, showing the takeover of a small Colombian village by narco-terrorists, and its impact on the children, their families and their school. This movie had the potential of going down that gloomy path as well. Instead, this was the first one in the series where I actually felt good at the end. The poignancy and pathos of the HRM dealing with the deceased's relatives is well offset by the adventurous challenges he faces getting the deceased to her final resting place, and by the comedic sparring between him and the journalist. This movie was very nicely balanced. For my own personal tastes, I might have liked it a little better if there had been a touch more comedy, one or two more laugh out loud moments, but if the production crew were wary of the slippery slope to A WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S, I have no quarrel with that call. It's not quite a perfect movie for me, but nearly so.

• A story about unhappy people

  rmanory2010-11-18

  I thought that this is a very good movie, and it can make a good candidate for the foreign language Academy Awards. The storyline is based on a novel titled 'A woman in Jerusalem' by one of the better known Israeli authors, A.B. Yehoshua. I have not read the book, but I am told that the story in the novel takes place in Siberia, whereas the film (or most of it) takes place in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. The English title is misleading, the full title in Hebrew means 'The mission of the Human Resources Manager'. A Romanian worker of a very large industrial bakery in Jerusalem is killed in a terrorist attack and is taken to the morgue; a journalist finds out that a salary slip found on her is from the bakery and writes an article blaming her workplace of lacking humanity. Driven by this bad publicity, the bakery sends its HR manager with the mission to "do the right thing" and take care of the proper burial of Iulia Petrache in her home country. However, things are not that simple. For a burial papers need to be signed by the next of kin, and a quest starts for the next of kin, the first one being her husband. However, it turns out that her husband is actually her ex-husband, and her son is still a minor, and the only eligible next of kin is her mother who lives very far, high up in the mountains. So the HR manager decides to get there and do the right thing, bury her in her childhood village, although he had the opportunity to take a shortcut and bury here en route. The intricate story line actually develops into a story of human relationships between total strangers. The journalist travels with the HR manager, and along the way they pick up Iulia's rebel son and travel to their distant destination in the company of weird people. There is humor and drama in these relationships, and the initial mutual animosity and contempt develop into a weird friendship. There are many twists and turns in the story and they all add to a movie that keeps the audience in constant suspense about what happens next. The characters, even the minor ones, are well played, and although some of the situations are practically impossible, overall the story line gets the viewer involved not only in the tragedy of Iulia's death but also in the tragedies of each of the other characters: the HR manager and his shattered family life, the orphan teenager and his bad relationship with his father, the bakery's night shift manager, and finally, the encounter with Iulia's mother who says that Iulia was unhappy in the village. This movie is very close to being a masterpiece. The cinematography is amazing and the camera goes into small details, such as a herd of geese crossing the road on the Romanian countryside. The only happy people in the movie seem the be the Israeli consular representative and her husband, and they provide some comic relief for the otherwise tragic situations. Highly recommended.

• A Body Without A Home: Enter Human Resources

  gradyharp2011-08-16

  THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER is not only the main character of this smart, funny, touching film, it is also the theme: dealing with human responses to illogical situations takes skills few people have mastered. Based on the novel 'A Woman in Jerusalem' by Abraham B. Jehoshua, adapted for the screen by Noah Stollman, and directed with great flair by Eran Riklis, this little story begins as a strange tiny seed and grows into a lesson about the sanctity of the human spirit by films end. A Human Resources Manager (Mark Ivanir is a multifaceted performance) is divorced from his wife (Reymond Amsalem) and only sees his daughter (Roni Koren) on occasion. He has been brought to Jerusalem by The Widow (Gila Almagor) to be the Human Resources Manager to Jerusalem's largest bakery because of his skills, but soon the climate changes: an Romanian ex-employee Yulia has been found dead due to a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, an employee unknown to the HR Manager, and the Press (in the person of 'The Weasel' - Guri Alfi - a looney photographer journalist) decides to make a case of corporate coldness in the situation. The Widow places the possible corporate disaster in the HR Manager's hands, and after much research, it is discovered that the body being kept in the city morgue cannot be buried without a family member 's signature. Yulia's ex-husband (Bogdan E. Stanoevitch) is uncovered but cannot sign for the body's release because the couple was divorced. The HR manager is directed to take the casket to Romania, have Yulia's mother (Irina Petrescu) sign for it, and bury the body there. The men - HR Manager, ex-husband, and Weasel - begrudgingly set off for Romania where they are met by the Israeli Counsel (Rosina Kambus) and her amour (Julian Negulesco) who offer their van and driver (Papil Panduru) to take the body to Yulia's home. At the town where Yulia had lived the group encounters Yulia's son (Noah Silver), a juvenile delinquent whom the father had thrown out of the home. Many conflicts arise before the boy joins the group, takes the body to the boy's grandmother who informs the little groups that Yulia lived and died in Jerusalem and must be returned there to be buried! The van collapses and the HR Manager and Weasel must return the body to Jerusalem in an army tank. It is an ongoing comedy of errors, but in the course of events the HR Manager rediscovers his own soft side of his humanity and learns the importance of human relations within families, towns, governments and people in general. Though the story is potentially a very sad statement about how immigrants are treated by corporations and how victims of suicide bombings can be all but forgotten, but the writing of script keeps the all too human acts of errors and acts of personal forgiveness beautifully balanced. The entire cast is excellent, but Mark Ivanir as the Human Resources Manager makes the film work - a brilliant, understated performance that spreads over the entire range of human responses and reactions. The film is visually stunning, showing us the beauty of Jerusalem, the devastation of Romania, and the incredibly picturesque winter scenes in Romania's very catholic towns. In Hebrew, English and Romanian with English subtitles. It is a little gem of a film. Grady Harp

• A shaggy dog story with a mournful side

  Nozz2010-08-27

  I don't know how much of what the movie omits is in the novel, but as the movie stands, we have several people each of whose lives has taken a turning-- not always for the worse, but usually-- and the details of that past turning are vague. The full Hebrew title would translate as THE MISSION OF THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER, and his mission takes him to the boondocks of Eastern Europe to meet the bereaved relatives of a murdered employee. It's a big contrast between familiar surroundings and exotic ones, and the contrast may be lost to viewers for whom the place where the action starts, Israel, is exotic anyway. Another thing lost is the word translated as MANAGER in the title. The word in the Hebrew title doesn't really mean "manager," it means "the appointee responsible." The protagonist (Mark Ivanir carries the movie well in this role) has less authority than he would like, and the plot takes him on a shaggy-dog road trip from one misfortune to another, becoming somewhat more light-hearted and philosophical along the way and showing many moments of altruism. There are some improbabilities and a few minor and unfortunate clichés, such as the fellow who-- like so many characters beset by a crisis in a movie-- had been trying to give up smoking. But the movie has momentum, the minor characters are colorful, the music is enjoyable, the sad and comic sides are well balanced, and I for one was left with a hankering to read the book. In English, by the way, the book is called A WOMAN IN JERUSALEM.