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TIME OUT (L'EMPLOI DU TEMPS)
Laurent Cantet, France, 2001
BBC Two: Tuesday 17 August 2004 11.20pm-1.30am
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Vincent Renault is a middle-aged, middle-class Frenchman who persuades his family, friends and arguably himself, that he retains a job despite being unemployed. Each morning he dons suit and tie and leaves home ostensibly to attend meetings. In reality he drives around aimlessly and voyeuristically peers into offices and other work places, as if reminding himself of a past he attempts to construct through deception. It's clear Vincent could get another job, but he has become content with his fantasy life and its sprawling implications.
L'Emploi du Temps marked director Laurent Cantet's second feature after his successful 2000 movie, Human Resources. As with his debut, he is concerned with the centrality of employment, focussing on the effect a job has on a man's psyche and the sense in which people are defined by their work. Vincent is a bleak version of Billy Liar with more than a dash of Reggie Perrin. He may not represent an everyman figure, but he stands as a warning of what could happen to any of us if we lost something of crucial importance to our daily lives. Cantet builds the tension superbly, monitoring Vincent's increasingly crazy schemes to raise cash, his flirtation with criminality and his desperation as the truth gradually seeps out.
The director co-wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on a true-story, although the film's ending is more mundane than the murderous conclusion to the real-life events. Indeed, Cantet's meticulous direction and Pierre Milton's exquisite photography occasionally lend the piece a documentary feel, although the cold, crisp visuals are accompanied by a stirring, string heavy score which verges on the operatic.
Aurélien Recoing is quietly convincing as Vincent, but Karin Viard excels as his wife, Muriel. Her horror and despair as she begins to uncover the truth about her husband are powerfully conveyed, contributing greatly to this poignant and thoughtful story.
Gavin Collinson
Previous films
on BBC Four
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As with the fictitious Vincent, Jean-Claude Romand sustained a life of total lies. He eventually killed his family in order to escape their judgment.
