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Libération; Saturday, February 19 and Sunday, February 20, 2005

Show. Grand Magasin’s new production.
“Cine-club of the absurd”

[strong](Centre Pompidou. Grande salle, level -1. Saturday, 8:30pm and Sunday, 5pm)[/strong]

Here they are back at Beaubourg, where they presented 0 tâche(s) sur 1 ont été effectuée(s) in 2003. They were three then, now they’ve doubled. The group’s founding couple, Pascale Murtin – François Hiffler, plus Bettina Atala, have added three male collaborators: Etienne Charry, Manuel Coursin and Christophe Salengro. This arithmetic reappears in the Grand Magasin troupe’s new show – 5ème Forum international du cinéma d’entreprise (5th international forum of corporate cinema) – in a binary (either…or…) or a metastatic form (from the singular to the multiple).

As usual, the actors are prompted by verbal instructions. They issue their proclamations in a light-hearted song whose refrain asks why it is necessary to do what one says and say what one does. You might say it’s a political platform. Or a series of role-playing games in some corporate context that revolves around an accumulation of visual clichés (blue files, orange desk chairs). Then, to complete the picture: a metallic coat rack and two bright red fire extinguishers. If the setting is new, the structure remains identical. Actions are taken to their logical conclusion that borders at times on the absurd, at times on the comical. Hence, one of the most successful gags is the title itself. The public, facing a screen, is kept eternally waiting for the film announced by a cine-club emcee, the director, the bearer of the microphone in charge of the debate, and the organizer of the after-film buffet. Reduced to its archetypal essence, the film will be shown, to everybody’s surprise. Accentuated by images that defy any description. Hervé Gauville[/one_half_last]