5 recensioni
- morrison-dylan-fan
- 21 giu 2016
- Permalink
Unlike FAR FROM Vietnam (1967; directly preceded by it in my viewing schedule), which the late Alain Resnais was also a part of, this is not a documentary (yet a fairly obscure title in comparison) but more or less a narrative film (thus making the individual input of the three directors indiscernible!) – albeit still of a heavily political and, by extension, dated nature. Incidentally, while an off-screen voice complaining that the credits are hard-to-read is assured that people watching the movie will recognize the actors regardless, I only caught sight myself of a pre-stardom Gerard Depardieu in the very first vignette!
What we have here is the anti-establishment attitude, typified by the May 1968 riots and which would inform several contemporaneous releases, agreeably presented via a series of satirical sketches – not that this alleviates the intrinsic didacticism of such fare. The premise is simple enough: a day and time are set on which all work is to stop; at first, the formerly oppressed classes relish their freedom (for which they also give up their house keys, since property no longer belongs to any individual but to one and all, with elderly people reluctant to embrace this viewpoint forced to improvise in concealing it!) – but soon begin to realize that some vital services simply cannot be abandoned, and themselves start to feel bored with the lack of activity (not even the opportunity to develop relationships suffices to satisfactorily occupy their time)! Eventually, they start taking up new interests, including turning pavements into makeshift gardens – and, so as not to forget where they were coming from, theatrical representations of their former lives are held!
Unsurprisingly, the level of the writing (by someone listed solely under the nom-de-plume Gebe'!) is hit-or-miss and, yet, some of it proves quite inspired: workers in a given position dub themselves like rock groups; a young man's 'novel' pursuit involves the collection of paper money, which has ostensibly lost its value since the onset of "Year One", but he still has amassed a staggering 648 million Francs!; this obvious financial crisis leads to a mass suicide (by way of people leaping out of windows into the crowded streets below) in Wall Street – a scene which recalls a similar gag in the contemporaneous Monty Python vehicle AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (1971)!
What we have here is the anti-establishment attitude, typified by the May 1968 riots and which would inform several contemporaneous releases, agreeably presented via a series of satirical sketches – not that this alleviates the intrinsic didacticism of such fare. The premise is simple enough: a day and time are set on which all work is to stop; at first, the formerly oppressed classes relish their freedom (for which they also give up their house keys, since property no longer belongs to any individual but to one and all, with elderly people reluctant to embrace this viewpoint forced to improvise in concealing it!) – but soon begin to realize that some vital services simply cannot be abandoned, and themselves start to feel bored with the lack of activity (not even the opportunity to develop relationships suffices to satisfactorily occupy their time)! Eventually, they start taking up new interests, including turning pavements into makeshift gardens – and, so as not to forget where they were coming from, theatrical representations of their former lives are held!
Unsurprisingly, the level of the writing (by someone listed solely under the nom-de-plume Gebe'!) is hit-or-miss and, yet, some of it proves quite inspired: workers in a given position dub themselves like rock groups; a young man's 'novel' pursuit involves the collection of paper money, which has ostensibly lost its value since the onset of "Year One", but he still has amassed a staggering 648 million Francs!; this obvious financial crisis leads to a mass suicide (by way of people leaping out of windows into the crowded streets below) in Wall Street – a scene which recalls a similar gag in the contemporaneous Monty Python vehicle AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (1971)!
- Bunuel1976
- 10 mar 2014
- Permalink
Some movies of the seventies seem to have been made yesterday;not this one.It's in fact one of the most dated works of its era.It's some gentler version of "Themroc" ,less pretentious, funny (in places) but not necessarily more palatable .
There's no story,but a spate of minisketches ,some of them witty,("There's no more property,so there're no more thieves" the warden says while opening the cells ),a lot of them tedious and repetitive.There was enough material to make a very good short,but 85 minutes it's inevitably too long.In a nutshell,let's stop working,let's stop producing,let's stop everything and all you need is love.Hence the title "l'an O1" (=year 01):why a 0,by the way?This is the typically "events of May 68 way of life" film.
If you like it ,try these :Claude Faraldo's "themroc" ,Agnès Varda's "l'une chante et l'autre pas" ,Jean-Luc Godard's " tout va bien"
It was Jacques Doillon's first effort.Although it seems puerile today,it nevertheless displays this director's intellectual ambitions.His best works remain the more accessible :the moving "un sac de billes" (1975)-which people who liked "au revoir les enfants" must see- and the strange disturbing "la drôlesse"(1979) which tells the story of A a hung-up young man who locks up a teenage girl in an attic.
There's no story,but a spate of minisketches ,some of them witty,("There's no more property,so there're no more thieves" the warden says while opening the cells ),a lot of them tedious and repetitive.There was enough material to make a very good short,but 85 minutes it's inevitably too long.In a nutshell,let's stop working,let's stop producing,let's stop everything and all you need is love.Hence the title "l'an O1" (=year 01):why a 0,by the way?This is the typically "events of May 68 way of life" film.
If you like it ,try these :Claude Faraldo's "themroc" ,Agnès Varda's "l'une chante et l'autre pas" ,Jean-Luc Godard's " tout va bien"
It was Jacques Doillon's first effort.Although it seems puerile today,it nevertheless displays this director's intellectual ambitions.His best works remain the more accessible :the moving "un sac de billes" (1975)-which people who liked "au revoir les enfants" must see- and the strange disturbing "la drôlesse"(1979) which tells the story of A a hung-up young man who locks up a teenage girl in an attic.
- dbdumonteil
- 11 lug 2003
- Permalink
- oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx
- 4 ago 2014
- Permalink
O what if we all stop ? what if we pick a date, like next tuesday and stop everything ? at what time ? let's say 3PM. next tuesday at 3PM we stop everything ! this is the plot of this movie, heavily influenced on the post may-68 philosophy, and it's aftermath. only working the few hours a month they need to, and hanging out the rest of the day, talking for hours with nothing to say really, but enough time to find out. Watching it 40 years later, it still has the marks of its time, like an under representation of female characters, but the spirit of the movie is that of a peaceful revolution. just stoping work and all of the useless things in civilisation will stop. say, next thursday at 6 ?
- Giz_Medium
- 31 ott 2020
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