This is a bleak, occasionally funny film, a little flawed by its obsessive mentality but worth seeing.
We follow an IT trainer barely holding down his job, struggling against loneliness, endlessly diagnosing the pointlessness of it all. Perhaps not entirely new territory for a French film - similar ground was covered not long ago by Cédric Kahn's L'Ennui. But there's enough observational wit here to hold our interest throughout, and the slightly unconvincing mid-section is compensated for by closing scenes that hit the right note.
The character's dislike of women is the film's most disturbing element. His hypotheses, while sometimes wild enough to entertain, are unlikely to be totally shared by the viewer. The shots of trains travelling to industrial parks made me think of Martin Parr's Boring Postcards and if you find something profound about multi-storey car parks, this is the film for you. There are also incidental treats such as the intriguingly dull food that "Our Hero" eats and his disgustingly nicotine-stained fingers.
We follow an IT trainer barely holding down his job, struggling against loneliness, endlessly diagnosing the pointlessness of it all. Perhaps not entirely new territory for a French film - similar ground was covered not long ago by Cédric Kahn's L'Ennui. But there's enough observational wit here to hold our interest throughout, and the slightly unconvincing mid-section is compensated for by closing scenes that hit the right note.
The character's dislike of women is the film's most disturbing element. His hypotheses, while sometimes wild enough to entertain, are unlikely to be totally shared by the viewer. The shots of trains travelling to industrial parks made me think of Martin Parr's Boring Postcards and if you find something profound about multi-storey car parks, this is the film for you. There are also incidental treats such as the intriguingly dull food that "Our Hero" eats and his disgustingly nicotine-stained fingers.