Les Années lumière (1981)
Directed by Alain Tanner

Film Review

Les Années lumière is one of Swiss director Alain Tanner's most mystical and lyrical films, and yet it also contains his bleakest assessment so far of post-industrial Europe in the late 1970s, early '80s. Although it is in fact based on another author's work (Daniel Odier's novel La Voie sauvage), the film feels as if it is one of Tanner's most personal. It is a granite-textured poem that succinctly expresses man's eternal longing for freedom and understanding, set against the backdrop of a world where consumerism and the dictates of capitalism have brought about a bland conformity that has robbed humanity of individuality and curiosity. The film builds on Tanner's earlier Le Milieu du monde (1974) and grimly anticipates his later work L'Homme qui a perdu son ombre (1991). The film was enthusiastically received at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981, where it won the Grand prix spécial du jury.

The central protagonist of the film is a rebellious young man who realises that his individual freedom is more important than an anodyne life of cosy conformity. In his quest for enlightenment he falls under the spell of an old recluse with whom he develops the classic master-pupil relationship - a virtual replay of the Luke Skywalker apprenticeship to Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The young man 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 no other connection between the two films, makes this somewhat 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.

Film Synopsis

In the year 2000, Jonas is already weary of life.  He is 25 and lives in Ireland, earning his crust as a pub barman.  There is nothing in this humdrum life that appeals to the unsettled young man, so, on the spur of the moment, he chucks it all in and goes off to a remote spot in search of new experiences.  Here, in the middle of nowhere, he finds a dilapidated old garage which is home to a strange old man, Yoshka Poliakoff.  The latter has lived here for an eternity, it seems, his only companions being the birds that are happy to share his grubby solitude.  At first, Yoshka treats Jonas with barely disguised contempt but the young man decides to say, certain that he can learn something from the older man.  Whilst visiting a nearby village, Jonas buys a pig from a much older woman named Betty, who soon becomes his mistress.

Yoshka resents the woman's presence and soon drives away.  He then tells Jonas that to pay his way he must repair a broken down petrol pump.  It turns out to be a futile errand - the pump is irreparably broken, and besides there is no petrol to put in it.  After been attacked by birds, Yoshka insists on being buried up to his neck for three days, at which point he appears miraculously healed.  When Jonas fails to win his master's approval by tidying up the wrecked cars that surround them, he reacts angrily by setting fire to the cars.  Yoshka finally decides to reveal his fantastic secret to his pupil, once he has captured an eagle for him...