Plot

A entirely original blend of observational documentary and tropical science-fiction, John & Jane (2005) follows the stories of six "call agents" that answer American 1-800 numbers in a Mumbai call center.

Shot on luminous 35mm film, John & Jane (2005) is an entirely original documentary that unfolds like dystopian science-fiction and follows the stories of six "call agents" that answer American 1-800 numbers in a Mumbai call center. After a heavy mix of American 'culture training' and 14-hour night shifts, the job starts to take its toll. Counterpointing the fluorescent interiors of late-night offices and hyper-malls with the uneasy currents swirling around the characters, John & Jane (2005) finds a young generation of urban Indians that exist between the Real and the Virtual. However this futuristic world of American aliases and simulated reality is not science fiction, these are the times in which we live. John & Jane (2005) raises disturbing questions about the nature of personal identity and what it means to be human in a 21st century globalized world.—Cinémathèque Française

In vast, fluorescent rooms, thousands of ambitious young Indians talk to people in Kentucky, California, or Idaho. Bridging continents by telephone, they pitch products and soothe frayed consumer nerves. As they troubleshoot, they dream of America. As they dream, they change. What is it like to transport yourself to a remote land you've never even seen? How does it feel to live so far outside your own body? Welcome to the world of offshore call centers. John & Jane (2005) is an astonishing look at the souls of the outsourced. Shot on 35mm and composed with unsettling grace, this documentary finds an entirely original and fitting language to express the eerie dislocation of virtual work. The lives it depicts are real, but the film's approach gives those lives the scope of speculative fiction. The film depicts the effects of globalization on this group of Indian call center workers. At one point they are convinced that call-centers offer a way into the American utopia. Glen and Sydney have taken Western names, partly for convenience, partly for their own pleasure. They sleep during the daytime and work in the middle of their night, following American business hours. Neither of them has ever left India. As part of their training, they get a peek into the American way of life. In classes that could be read as satire or tragedy, they study shopping flyers as though they were textbooks. Some begin to adopt American values as their own. One dreams of buying his own Spanish-style villa. Another notes, "Everyone who's ever gone to America gets rich." When their shifts ends, Glen and Sydney go back to traditional Indian homes, with simple amenities and mothers who urge them to eat. Director Ashim Ahluwalia builds a story of transformation that becomes more and more engrossing - yet Naomi still comes as a surprise. Blonde down to her eyelashes, she speaks with a kind of cyborg-Midwest accent. "I'm totally very Americanized," she asserts. Ahluwalia's resonant portrait shows Naomi and her coworkers to be products of America, and strangely, also of India and of their own satellite fantasies.

John & Jane (2005) raises disturbing questions about the nature of personal identity and what it means to be human in a 21st century globalized world.