. A comic yet caustic parable about the perils of capital, Ophuls's one Dutch film follows a bank courier, Brand (Herman Bouber), who loses a large deposit and is fired. Brand meets some shady characters associated with international finance, and from the depths of disgrace finds himself on the top of the heap; now the passive clerk has his shot at playing the authoritarian windbag. Ophuls's delirious tracking shots and psychologically motivated compositions, a mise-en-scène crafted to express the overweening influence of power, were a drastic departure from a Dutch cinema that stressed entertainment. To further sabotage the moment's amusement, Ophuls incorporated the Brechtian element of a singing ringmaster who interjects a commentary on the events, looking forward to the puppetmaster of La ronde, the ringmaster of Lola Montès.