A pitch-black look at careerism gone wild is set not in the predictable environs of an office but in a more natural setting of rocky cliffs and waterfalls where it is far easier to humiliate -- or maim -- a colleague.

Lionel Bailliu's compelling Fair Play is a movie that initially surprises and then, with an almost relentless drive, continues to astonish, amaze and even shock with an obstinate refusal to conform to expectations. Bailliu directs with an in-your-face confidence, pulling us into what seems like a black comedy but which turns out to be so much more, disturbingly so. The film opens with a ferocious, 20-minute racquetball sequence that's pure cinema bravura, nearly perspiring testosterone and setting the tone for the series of set pieces that follow. Eric Savin -- channeling Kevin Spacey here -- plays Charles, the deplorable head of a company owned by his father-in-law (veteran actor Jean-Pierre Cassel, Vincent's father). The target of a sexual-harassment suit filed by a secretary, Nicole (Marion Cotillard, also playing Edith Piaf in the festival's La Vie en Rose), Charles has planned a staff retreat of hiking and rock-climbing, an outing that brings out the back-stabbing worst in everyone and, if things go well, could lead to, well, someone's accidental death. The evil joy of Fair Play is that it doesn't play fair at all, especially not with the audience.