At the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 Jean-Luc Godard praised three directors: Samira Makhmalbaf, Aki Kaurismäki, and Alain Guiraudie, whose film That Old Dream That Moves was featured in the Directors’ Fortnight section. Thanks to Godard, the film gained rare traction considering its mere 51 minute runtime (and even made its way to the Midnight Sun Film Festival).
”A young guy turns up at a rundown factory to dismantle some kind of machine before the place closes in a week. In the process, he gets to talk to the understandably morose staff about how they plan to face the future. About work, economics, class, sex, money, happiness and a whole lot more this unassuming, sometimes funny and always surprising film (…) is near perfect, without an ounce of narrative fat or stylistic gristle, and utterly relevant,” lauded Geoff Andrew of Time Out Film Guide.
Guiraudie has total control of not only the location but also the image: the stationary camera renders the factory milieu with a sense of ease and presence. It feels like the film includes nothing excessive — and nothing ”unusual”, until the twist after the midway point takes the viewer by total surprise. The film has been said to be as if Laurent Cantet’s uncompromising depiction of a factory strike Human Resources (1999) was directed by François Ozon. The film has also been compared to the underground legend Kenneth Anger’s homoerotic short film Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965).
Timo Malmi