The first feature film by theatremaker Jan Decorte covers a day and a night in the lone life of a Brussels municipal clerk. Pierre lives with his mother in an antiquated house in a run-down working-class area. Every morning, Pierre takes the tram to his job at the town hall, where he listens to his colleagues' jokes over the lunch break. His only hope of banishing his boredom and frustration is a girl from the gymnastics club. One evening, when his mother is out of the house, he decides to invite her into his home.
“Man is an unravelable secret to anyone else. The final significance of most of his actions is obscure as are the reasons for them. At what point is our knowledge and the possibility of knowing the motivations of others? Should not one question the very existence of motivations? I know what you are getting at when you talk of human motivations.”
Jan Decorte
“Using the same method as Akerman in Jeanne Dielman, including the brilliant low-key lighting style, Decorte attempts to confront naturalism with narrative, to reveal its mechanics, a collection of objects arranged in a certain order, a representation rather than a reflection of reality.”
From programme text
