En ces temps incertains

Morning shift, afternoon shift and evening shift to explore, in a mythical glass works, the condition of a modern workman. "Some of the shots from "En ces temps incertains" are magnificent. Florence Lloret knows exactly how to discover the hidden beauty of this glassware from which she tries to capture the intimate day-to-day life. Certainly, filming these latter-day vulcans is scarcely a new undertaking. But a sequence such as the one where coloured bottles pass in front of a luminous screen in order to be inspected by a vigilant worker would hardly be out of place in a museum of contemporary art. Moreover, humour is often present, as in this penultimate scene where, in the background, somewhat bewildered visitors (ourselves perhaps ?) leave the premises while rows of bottles inexorably file past in the opposite direction. However, the film-maker's intention is to steer us elsewhere. If "En ces temps incertains" follows several workers of the hundred-year old "Verreries ouvrières d'Albi", a former co-operative founded under the aegis of Jean Jaurès and today passed into private ownership, it is to enable us to better grasp the condition of the contemporary worker. Successively present during the morning shift, in the afternoon and in the evening, the filmmaker reveals the abandoned dreams incarnated by a forty-year old poet, the disillusioned realism of another and the hopes harboured by a freshly recruited young employee. Although marked by a profound melancholy, underscored by the chords of Piazzolla – economy and efficiency having finally overtaken human considerations and worker, solidarity – "En ces temps incertains" restores a certain dignity to those who, little by little, seem threatened if not destined to lose it." (Bertrand Bacqué