A film of rare spiritual beauty that deals with themes both universal and domestic Swiss. Universal in the focus on the relationship of an individual to democratic society and its supposed freedoms, and the fallout from failed revolutions of 1968, in France, Mexico and Czechoslovakia (crushing of the Prague Spring), in the year of the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and of anti-Vietnam war protests. Domestic in the issues it raises about the rights of cross-border workers in Switzerland (recurrent from Tanner's 1974 film Le milieu du monde), the ghost of the Geneva Massacre (of socialist protesters in 1932 by the Swiss Army), of the contradiction of a prosperous though backwards country where female suffrage was achieved at a federal level only in 1971.
The film follows eight individuals, whose names all begin with the letter M, who are not happy following the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and seek different ways to express that whether that is in looking to withdraw from society, sabotage it, or develop an alternative. They show a society that puts its foot on your neck if you fail to play along and sleepwalk the path laid out for you through school and the workplace. There's thatch-haired Marie (played by actress Miou-Miou), who performs individual acts of covert defiance at her supermarket job; her boyfriend, Marxist-Leninist teacher Marco, chock-full of enthusiasm and desire to help people be happy and grow; Madeleine who seeks an internal retreat via her interest in Vama Marga tantra; her preferred partner for this "realisation" Max, who performs acts of capital sabotage on a larger level, a disillusioned 1968er, who was in a group but now acts unilaterally; buzzard-headed Mathieu who sets up an alternative school for children and performs menial jobs, perhaps the closest of them to a true proletarian Marxist; his wife Mathilde, a happy mother and lover, compared to a kindly whale; finally their farmhouse hosts, animal-loving biophilosophiser Marcel and his farmer's wife Marguerite, who seems to have a secret life as a prostitute.
The individuals are for revolution but Tanner makes it clear that they're not interested in the authoritarian outcome from the USSR, so archive footage of missile-fetishisation parades are spliced in. The ultimate point is that the chance to change society for the better in 1968 was a once in an era possibility, and that the 70s folk have to wait for future generations to have a chance. The note at the end of the film for me however, sounded pessimistically, we failed to brake what is now a runaway train.
The most beautiful moment for me was when Marcel describes the singing of birds at dawn, how people don't hear things like that anymore and have built walls of silence around themselves, unable to hear the world turning, self-obsessed and desolate. I think that although it's taboo in the west to be anything other than bullheadedly proud of the way we live nowadays, there are still many people who are forced to live inside their heads, and neurosis along with mental illness is widespread. This inside-living is shown in the movie by transitions to black and white images that show wish fulfilment. The inmates in this film are only ever fleetingly fulfilled.
My heart was broken before even the first shot in the movie rolled, by the piano solo from Jean-Marie Sénia playing over the opening credits, full of present drudgery and faraway hope, that is perfectly tailored for the movie.
The movie is actually very subtle, what's easy to pass by is that there's quite a lot of conflict between the members of the group: Marxist Mathieu would like to be able to examine the farm's books so that he understands how much profit it is making and what would be a fair wage for him, however his asking that and Marguerite agreeing to it is in one of those black and white fantasy segments - the farm is very much not a commune, Mathieu sits at the same table but is fundamentally labour; Max is very belittling about his girlfriend Madeleine's tantra; there's Marguerite's illicit prostitution, which her husband is totally fooled by, her secrecy he thinks is something mysterious and beautiful; and towards the end Marco suggests that Mathilde's child be named Marie (who has been jailed), and the others don't even clock who he's referring to. Perhaps if one were to look at the film blackly, the characters are stubborn, lacking the ability to fit in, to go with the flow.
The film follows eight individuals, whose names all begin with the letter M, who are not happy following the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and seek different ways to express that whether that is in looking to withdraw from society, sabotage it, or develop an alternative. They show a society that puts its foot on your neck if you fail to play along and sleepwalk the path laid out for you through school and the workplace. There's thatch-haired Marie (played by actress Miou-Miou), who performs individual acts of covert defiance at her supermarket job; her boyfriend, Marxist-Leninist teacher Marco, chock-full of enthusiasm and desire to help people be happy and grow; Madeleine who seeks an internal retreat via her interest in Vama Marga tantra; her preferred partner for this "realisation" Max, who performs acts of capital sabotage on a larger level, a disillusioned 1968er, who was in a group but now acts unilaterally; buzzard-headed Mathieu who sets up an alternative school for children and performs menial jobs, perhaps the closest of them to a true proletarian Marxist; his wife Mathilde, a happy mother and lover, compared to a kindly whale; finally their farmhouse hosts, animal-loving biophilosophiser Marcel and his farmer's wife Marguerite, who seems to have a secret life as a prostitute.
The individuals are for revolution but Tanner makes it clear that they're not interested in the authoritarian outcome from the USSR, so archive footage of missile-fetishisation parades are spliced in. The ultimate point is that the chance to change society for the better in 1968 was a once in an era possibility, and that the 70s folk have to wait for future generations to have a chance. The note at the end of the film for me however, sounded pessimistically, we failed to brake what is now a runaway train.
The most beautiful moment for me was when Marcel describes the singing of birds at dawn, how people don't hear things like that anymore and have built walls of silence around themselves, unable to hear the world turning, self-obsessed and desolate. I think that although it's taboo in the west to be anything other than bullheadedly proud of the way we live nowadays, there are still many people who are forced to live inside their heads, and neurosis along with mental illness is widespread. This inside-living is shown in the movie by transitions to black and white images that show wish fulfilment. The inmates in this film are only ever fleetingly fulfilled.
My heart was broken before even the first shot in the movie rolled, by the piano solo from Jean-Marie Sénia playing over the opening credits, full of present drudgery and faraway hope, that is perfectly tailored for the movie.
The movie is actually very subtle, what's easy to pass by is that there's quite a lot of conflict between the members of the group: Marxist Mathieu would like to be able to examine the farm's books so that he understands how much profit it is making and what would be a fair wage for him, however his asking that and Marguerite agreeing to it is in one of those black and white fantasy segments - the farm is very much not a commune, Mathieu sits at the same table but is fundamentally labour; Max is very belittling about his girlfriend Madeleine's tantra; there's Marguerite's illicit prostitution, which her husband is totally fooled by, her secrecy he thinks is something mysterious and beautiful; and towards the end Marco suggests that Mathilde's child be named Marie (who has been jailed), and the others don't even clock who he's referring to. Perhaps if one were to look at the film blackly, the characters are stubborn, lacking the ability to fit in, to go with the flow.