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Mineral cinema

The excellent LA COMÉDIE DU TRAVAIL|THE COMEDY OF WORK (1987; May 27 at 7 pm and May 31 at 9 pm) is a fresco on the theme of the non-existence of work. The heroine works for the French national employment agency: she has two clients, one a professional chômeur (unemployed person) with a passion for mountain climbing, the other a punctilious bank loan officer. She falls in love with the first man and helps him get a position for which the second is better qualified. La comédie du travail shows Moullet’s intransigence intact: again there are the same rarefied sets. (During an employment interview in an office, workmen come in and remove the desk; a little later they return to bring in a smaller one.) It also deserves points for the most original use of Albinoni’s ubiquitous Adagio in a film soundtrack: here it’s heard as on-hold music on the phone.