Time Is a Key Piece in This Picture About Watch-Making — and Anarchism

“The revolution will not be televised,” Gil Scott-Heron intoned famously toward the tail end of the 1960s. Did anyone think to ask, though, if it would be synchronized? That’s one question raised by “Unrest,” the quixotic new film by writer and director Cyril Schäublin.It’s odd enough that a film should be dedicated, with a conspicuous level of particularity and tenderness, to watch-making, but anarchism as well? What kind of elevator pitch did Mr. Schäublin confabulate to get funding for that idea? “Unrest” is also a period picture, taking place in a remote township in 19th-century Switzerland. Boffo box office numbers can’t have been uppermost in the director’s mind. “Unrest” is predicated on historical fact, both in terms of family history and broader currents of culture. The valley of Saint-Imier was the hometown, and continues to be the base of operations, for the luxury watch company Longines. Breitling, too, originated in Saint-Imier. Mr. Schäublin’s grandmother worked in a watch factory and was responsible for making the balance wheel, or unrueh, of the mechanism. A deep-seated respect for craft is palpable throughout the movie.Unrueh translates into “unrest,” and the title cuts two ways. Politics, along with watches, enters into it. Saint-Imier was a notable site of ideological foment. The Anarchist St. Imier International was formed after a previous cohort of like-minds splintered in disagreement over the application of pure anarchism as opposed to Marxist principles. The group hasn’t been forgotten: An International Anti-Authoritarian Gathering will take place in Saint-Imier this July in honor of the 150th anniversary of the “organized anarchist movement.”Forget, for a moment, the thought of anarchists having to organize themselves. Consider, instead, the response of cartographer and anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921) after spending time in the Jura Mountains: “After staying a few weeks with the watchmakers, my views upon socialism were settled: I was an anarchist.” The actor Alexei Evstratov bears a fair resemblance to the young Kropotkin, though as depicted in “Unrest” he’s nobody’s idea of a revolutionary. Quite the milquetoast, our Russian radical.Kropotkin is at the periphery of “Unrest,” as is, for that matter, every other character in the movie. Although we come to recognize its players — the factory owners, the supervisors, the barkeep, a roving photographer, and a cadre of rather severe young women — the picture doesn’t focus on character so much as place and process. Fans of Impressionist painting will enjoy the costumery and mises en scène. Those with an abiding appreciation of finely tuned motor skills will relish the adoring close-ups of watches undergoing assembly.“Unrest” is notably devoid of drama or momentum. Mr. Schäublin, possibly channeling the cinematic strategies of Robert Bresson, keeps a distance from the proceedings, favoring expansive shots in which characters can be hard to locate and, at moments, hard to hear. Emotional tension or psychological import are held at arm’s length. Events, some of them unpleasant, unfurl with stoic politesse. Is this picture too Swiss for its own good? “Unrest” is a static movie any way you cut it. Stick with it and you’ll wonder if it qualifies as a comedy. The emphasis on punctuality and different stratifications of time could be the stuff of a Monty Python sketch. Although there are moments that occasion laughter — there’s nothing quite like a deadpan double-take — the picture is reminiscent in no small way of Robert Musil’s novel “The Man Without Qualities” as it keys into the absurdity of workaday routines. Those with an abundance of patience are recommended to Mr. Schäublin’s meditation on the promises of technology and the quiddities of progress. Yet even then its not inconsiderable satisfactions will take time to announce themselves.

Time Is a Key Piece in This Picture About Watch-Making — and Anarchism

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