Review of The Human Resources Manager

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.