This is the kind of documentary that could be a lot of fun — it’s a filmmaker drilling down into a group of people being really passionate about something. But… Gorin just doesn’t seem that interested, really? And I can see why; it’s really hard to see how you could find anything interesting here. It’s about a group of people who’s doing a model railroad thing, and…
It’s just not interesting?
Perhaps I’m just not the right audience for this:
Great care was made to capture the action and the love of members for the layout and the prototype. The layout is quite complicated and has excellent detail. Model railroaders will want to watch it over and over again to experience all of it.
I can’t even tell if that’s sarcasm or not!
But then the movie changes, at about the same time they switch to colour, and things become a whole lot more interesting.
(They’re looking at a passing train.)
This movie starts off a bit wobbly — but probably on purpose, because it’s that’s kind of movie it is. And then it’s suddenly brilliant, and weirdly resonant.
So:
Routine Pleasures. Jean-Pierre Gorin. 1986.
This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.