Alain Tanner’s Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 is a thoughtful, compassionate, funny, and provocative ensemble drama on the contemporary fate of several May 68 activists as their post-radical lives converge on an idyllic suburban organic farm: a proofreader named Max (Jean-Luc Bideau) who attempts to subvert the actions of an opportunistic real estate developer; a popular high school teacher named Marco (Jacques Denis) who implements unorthodox methods for teaching history; a French cashier named Marie (Miou-Miou) who uses her job to surreptitiously help the elderly; an unemployed typesetter named Mathieu (Rufus) who accepts a menial job as a horse manure collector at the farm in exchange for a modest wage and room and board at the large farm house to accommodate his ever-growing family. A thematic hybrid between Claude Sautet’s understated examination of middle-aged bourgeoisie fused with the acuity of Alain Resnais’ innately analytical socio-political cinema, the film perfectly encapsulates the dilemma of an aging idealistic generation as they continue to struggle to exist in their imperfect, contemporary reality.
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