Pandore

An evening in the life of a merciless doorman at the Paris nightclub Pandore. He is the one to decide who can and cannot enter the club, and he does so completely at random. In or out? The selection criteria are unclear and the frustration on the part of the hopeful patrons is huge. Sometimes he's in a good mood, but oftentimes he's not: perverted exercise of power, injustice, and nepotism in a nutshell. The soundtrack underscores the tumult and the intrigue transpiring at the gates to "heaven." Everyone has his own strategy to convince "God" to let him in: by being friendly or snobbish, or perhaps with humor or aggression. In the end, the doorman is the one to hand down the verdict. The camera steadily records the procession of the chosen ones and the outcasts. This observational documentary, which takes place on one location over the course of one evening, reminds us of the works of Franz Kafka. The film's motto comes from a passage in , by the French essayist and moralist Jean de la Bruyère (1645-1696): "The city is shared in different societies, which are like so many little republics, with their laws, their uses, their jargon, and their words for laughing."