What the...French?

I saw two very interesting French movies this weekend. The first was called Two Days, One Night (or Deux Jours, Une Nuit for the Francophiles out there). Marion Cotillard starred as a woman who's in danger of losing her factory job unless she can convince at least 9 of her 16 coworkers to give up the bonuses they were promised (1,000 Euros). If the majority of workers agree to forego their bonuses, that money would be used to keep Marion on the payroll. She has one weekend (two days, one night) to track down her coworkers and try to convince them to help her out before they all vote via secret ballot on Monday morning. The movie was fascinating not just because this woman had to basically beg her coworkers, who didn't have much themselves, to forego needed money, but because employment laws must be totally different in France that here in the US. Marion basically stalked her coworkers. She called them if she had their phone numbers and showed up at their homes unannounced. If someone did that in the US, they'd be fired on the spot. You can't hunt your coworkers down and harass them at their homes! Crazy.

The second French movie I saw was called Eastern Boys about a middle aged Frenchman who picks up a hustler of Eastern European descent at a train station and the hustler and his thug friends end up cleaning the Frenchman out. They descend on the Frenchman's condo, proceed to drink his liquor, have a party, break things and then take the things they didn't break (like the artwork on his walls, his TV, computer, etc.). But, even after this, the guy still wants to have a relationship with the hustler who set him up in the first place. He falls for the guy and wants to help him get away from the Eastern Bloc hoodlums he's running around town with. Again, crazy.