well, sort of.
in olivier assayas' dreamy 1999 film, 'fin août, début septembre', amalric briefly holds down a job coordinating the publication of an encyclopedia, just like me! okay, so mine have to do with science, his has to do with literature. i have a cubicle, he has an office. but really, nearly twins.
amalric plays gabriel, a chronically out-of-work aspiring novelist who doesn't seem to write all that much. drifting between his ex, jenny, and the somewhat more exciting anne, he seems fairly aimless until his good friend adrien (francois cluzet), a moderately successful writer, begins to suffer from a never-named disease. not that gabriel ever becomes that much less aimless, mind you, but he does seem to realize over the course of the film that sometimes decisions have to be made, and made by him.
cluzet's adrien is darker and more disturbed than i've seen him, even more than in last year's wonderful 'tell no one'. but assayas doesn't delve too deeply into his character. although if you think about it, he doesn't really delve too deeply into anyone's character, which is really what gives the movie a presence that is different than most. early on, an interviewer is expressing his views over adrien's novels, commenting that the problem is that there's really not much of a story to any of them. gabriel replies that real life isn't so much stories anyway. and he's right. people are so often obsessed with movies being two hours of non-stop event, and that honestly doesn't resemble life at all. in this way, the film really was reminiscent of assayas' earlier film 'clean', starring maggie cheung, in that you have people wrestling with these huge issues (addiction in 'clean', love and death in 'fin août') and although these thing obviously have tremendous impact on their lives, there are still such a lot of in between moments when you're just left without an awful lot going on.
apart from amalric, the rest of the ensemble cast was great. although, virginie ledoyen seems a little young and a little hysterically beautiful for gabriel's restless vaguery. and a small subplot involving adrien and his fifteen-year-old lover was more than a little icky.
i was...mildly disappointed in the ending. but that may just be a girly hope that gabriel would choose the less attractive girl. but he didn't, and i still work in a little cubicle with piles of scientific encyclopedias.
