The film essay is sometimes thought to be a lost cause, or at least something of a rarity. Here is a distinguished one by LOUIS
MALLE, who can fairly be described as a ' doyen' of the art. A Human Condition is on a smaller scale than his celebrated reports on India, and on a subject much closer to home - the Renault automobile factory in Paris, where Malle lives. This is a short film with no overt message, no story, no plot line, but the implication that mass production is not human. The viewer is left to draw his own conclusions, based on what Louis Malle 's camera brings him. The film was made as Malle's response to unrest at the Renault factory. But it is not an account of industrial strife, or bargaining -instead, the eminent French director reflects the conditions and life of the workers in the car factory. ' A human condition ...