Review of Two Days, One Night (2014) by Elgan D — 01 May 2015

"I do not want to make you lose 1000 Euros but I just want to tell you I would like you to vote for me to keep my job." With these words being the essence of every single visit, we are presented with a moral dilemma through which we explore the dynamics in the lives and relationships between Sandra's coworkers among each other and herself. Following Sandra's journey from door to door, we get immersed into the two simultaneous main narratives for the film; Sandra's struggle to maintain her job and her psychological journey towards herself esteem. By portraying the injustice and power relations in Sandra's workplace, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne contribute to the metanarrative about capitalism against communism while showing that the very same injustice offers the terms for its own resistance.

Sandra wakes up to receive a phone call from her friend Juliette, who works with her, to learn that her manager decided to exclude her from the factory and let the other workers benefit from her salary by receiving 1000 Euros as a bonus. As she was on a sick leave to be treated from depression, her coworkers found that they can cover up her shifts by working for slightly longer hours. Sandra's reactions to the news by excessive crying and complete dependence on Xanax pills reveal her fragility. With Juliette's support, Sandra succeeds to get the manager to agree on performing a second ballot. Having only "two days and one night" before the Monday's vote, Sandra embarks on her journey to convince her coworkers to vote for her. As she moves from one house to another, we get exposed to brilliant micro narratives that, in a very short timeframe show the hardships Sandra's coworkers are going through themselves by showing most of them busy with their second jobs, for example.

The film derives its uniqueness from how the plot is presented. Even though it takes place over two days with repeated actions, the film still manages to brilliantly stimulate our interest. The information is not presented to us at once as the film maintains our curiosity by presenting the details one piece at a time. For example, we firstly get to know that Sandra is about to lose her job, and then we know that she was on a sick leave. By seeing her swallowing Xanax pills excessively, we speculate that she is going through a psychological clinical difficulty until we finally get to know that she suffered from depression. Along the way, we connect the stories together and anticipate more. Yet, Sandra is not our only concern but her coworkers soon gain our sympathy as well. The continuous repetition for Sandra's plea lines for them to vote for her to stay provide the film with a rhythmic manner because of the peak we get into the other factory workers' lives which are not easier than Sandra's. They, too, need that money to fix their houses, pay for their children's education and pay for their bills. While we have that peak into their lives, we get to see their different responses to Sandra's plea that ranged from violently attacking Sandra, bursting into tears and asking for her forgiveness and leaving the husband to manage to help her. We end up feeling a mix of hope and fear, exactly as Sandra, whenever a new door is knocked.

Such dynamic relationship between Sandra and her coworkers symbolizes the confrontation between communism and capitalism. To overcome the boss's plan in throwing few of his factory's crumbs to the workers, Sandra has to be sacrificed. However, the very same situation, which the factory manager forces them into, becomes the medium for the workers to show their sense of solidarity with her. Eventually gets half of them to vote for her. In presenting that, the film breaks the ironic distance between itself and the audience with the excessive, almost continuous, close ups to the characters' faces highlighting their emotions. As a result, we stop worrying about Sandra alone and we become a part of that community, abhorring the factory's policy and waiting eagerly for the result. By the end of the film, we surprisingly have that sense of relief after Sandra finally loses her job. As soon as she exits the factory and calls her husband, tell him that she is finally "happy", the camera moves with her excluding the factory from the frame then it becomes anchored for the first time in the film and we see Sandra as she walks away.