‘I Understand Your Displeasure’ Berlinale Review: The Cost of Efficiency (Panorama)

Heike never stops moving. She works nonstop, gives orders and advice, criticizes her employees, pushes them to do better—often not in the best possible ways. A devoted middle manager at a company that provides cleaning services to businesses, institutions, and offices, Heike drives herself to the brink of a stress-related breakdown in her quest to deliver flawless results, retain clients, and earn the appreciation of her boss. But in the contemporary European labor and economic climate, no matter how hard one works—or how much one humiliates oneself on the job—things are unlikely to improve. In fact, the opposite is far more probable.

This German film, with clear echoes of the Dardenne brothers’ cinema and—starting with its title, which plays on corporate jargon with a double meaning—the work of Laurent Cantet, especially Human Resources, charts Heike’s slow awakening, or rather the brutal reality check she receives as she tries to do her job properly, albeit with her worst manners on full display. There is no doubt that Heike is efficient and energetic, but in her drive to meet targets, fulfill ambitions, and sustain the economic structure of the company she works for, she is capable of actions that verge on cruelty and outright repulsion. At 59, she has fully internalized a ruthless every-man-for-himself mentality and reproduces it almost unconsciously—until, inevitably, Europe’s labor crisis catches up with her as well.

I Understand Your Displeasure has little interest in explanations or sociological analysis. It is a film in constant motion, one in which viewers may grasp only half of what is actually going on—Heike juggles subcontractors, employees, bosses, clients, social services, banks, loans, staff reduction requests, and the many bureaucratic entanglements of German professional life—but it never loses sight of the logic governing all of it: the relentless pressure to give more, to pass that pressure down the line to those even lower on the socioeconomic ladder, and, when necessary, to be cruel in the process.

The feature debut of German director Kilian Armando Friedrich carries the energy, rhythm, and tension generated by a perpetually moving camera and a protagonist who almost never slows down. As Heike, Sabine Thalau is a tightly coiled bundle of nervous energy, tension, fury, and anxiety, gradually realizing that despite her ongoing ethical degradation, her goals are not only failing to materialize but are also placing her in conflict with an ever-growing number of people, including those closest to her. Aside from a closing note that feels more hopeful than realistic, I Understand… is a harsh portrait of the contemporary European workplace, where workers from multiple countries, particularly Eastern Europe, compete for meager wages under conditions of constant mistreatment.

While the film tackles a scenario already familiar from recent European social cinema, Friedrich introduces several elements that distinguish it from similar works. One is the emergence of Artificial Intelligence as a new “player” in the labor arena. But more significantly, the film places at its center a deeply unpleasant protagonist, someone who makes no attempt to win the sympathy of anyone—neither the people she encounters or works with, nor the audience itself—in her illusory attempt to prevail within the logic of permanent competition. A race whose outcome, unless Heike broadens her perspective and truly looks at the world around her, is unlikely to be as positive as she imagines.