Shot over multiple nights and from one camera angle, this observational film focuses on the caprices of a mercurial doorman at a Parisian nightclub. The cast of club-going characters seeking his good favor from the other side of the velvet rope includes the full range: the fashionable, the uptight, the incredulous, the desperate, the mendacious. Loose rules emerge—excess ego or excess intoxication (or a mixture of the two) result in almost certain denial—but the reasons many are allowed in remain a mystery to all but Mathieu. At times hilarious, at others pathetic, the jockeying between host and party seeker is always entertaining. The film is vérité at its best.  AK