Summary
In the year 2000, Jonas is 25 years old and lives in Ireland. Disillusioned with
his life as a pub barman, he decides to give up everything and live with a mysterious
old man, Yoshka, at a run down garage in the middle of no-where. At first,
the old man taunts Jonas, giving him useless tasks to do, such as attending a derelict
petrol pump. This drives the young man to distraction and he tries to kill himself.
Impressed by his young disciple, Yoshka finally decides to share with him his fantastic
secret...
Review
Les Années lumière encapsulates Swiss director Alain Tanner’s bleak
assessment of post-industrial Europe of the late 1970s and is both a compelling and disturbing
portrait of solitude and desire for freedom. The film is often mis-classified as
science-fiction, most probably on account of its bizarre title and its central character's
striking resemblance to the Tom Baker incarnation of Dr Who. It is more accurately
a bleak social drama which offers sombre reflection of a world where conformity and bland
commercialism have robbed society of humanity and individuals of free expression.
The hero of the film is a rebellious young man who realises that his individual freedom
is more important than a cosy world of anodyne conformity. He is named Jonas, he
is aged 25, and the film is set in the year 2000, suggesting that this is a sequel to
Tanner’s earlier film Jonas
qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000. The fact that the previous film was set in
France and this film is set in Ireland, with little other connection between the two films,
makes that slightly implausible. Also, Tanner made another film in 1999, Jonas
et Lila, à demain, which is a more likely sequel to Jonas qui aura 25 ans
en l'an 2000.
Although the film is a strangely compelling work, its impact is greatly diminished by
clumsy (and unnecessary) dubbing from English into French, and also by its bizarre fantasy
ending, which at least partly undermines the film’s harsh realism. Nevertheless
the film was well received at Cannes in 1981 where it won the Grand prix spécial
du jury.
© James Travers 2002
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