JONAH WHO WILL BE IN THE YEAR (25 ) (2000) Movie Review

Jonas—Qui Aura 25 Ans en l'An 2000

Movie directors are usually not great at summarizing their own films; that's why they make movies. But I have to hand it to Swiss director Alain Tanner, who once described his dazzlingly beguiling Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 as “a dramatic tragicomedy as political science fiction.” Jonoh is set eight years after that pivotal and convulsive year for the world's young people, 1968. It's a series of stories—fragments of stories, really—concerning eight survivors of that traumatic time, all of whom now face the responsibilities of adulthood, and all of whom have been altered to varying degrees by the 1960s. These characters are seen in splintered, kaleidoscopic terms, but Tanner manages to keep them distinctive, consistent, and memorable by use of ingenious cinematic shorthand that includes both fantasy sequences and densely distilled snippets of the characters' everyday lives. A schoolteacher (Jacques Denis) demonstrates the relationship between time and history by use of a giant sausage; a man (Jean-Luc Bideau) complains about the cost of cigarettes while chain smoking; a supermarket cashier (Miou-Miou) continues her '60s dream of revolutionary liberation by undercharging customers she deems worthy—often those she deems worthy are simply those she likes. Whether they're misguided, hypocritical, or simply clueless, their ideas and their passion become infectious, and their refusal to stop searching for answers becomes thrillingly reassuring. Tanner loves these characters and wishes them well as they lurch forward through their lives, and through ours. There was an era, not long ago, when filmmakers of Tanner's intelligence and curiosity were not uncommon. With luck, we'll have a new and restless crop of such filmmakers well before the year 2000.

NEXT STOP … No Man's Land, Return of the Secaucus Seven, The Big Chill

1976 110m/C SI Jean-Luc Bideau, Myriam Meziere, Miou-Miou, Jacques Denis, Rufus, Dominique Labourier, Roger Jendly, Miriam Boyer, Raymond Bussieres, Jonah; D: Alain Tanner; W: Alain Tanner; C: Renato Berta; M: Jean-Marie Senia. National Society of Film Critics Awards '76: Best Screenplay. VHS NYF