Le Milieu du monde (1974)
Directed by Alain Tanner

Film Review

The bleak unpopulated landscapes of Alain Tanner's films express the emptiness of his protagonists' inner lives but never more so than in Le Milieu du monde, a grimly realist character study centred on a man slowly waking up to the futilty of the delusions on which he has built his life and career. Portrayed with extraordinary conviction by Philippe Léotard, the hero (if we can call him that) believes he has found his perfect soul mate in an Italian waitress. But as he imagines a new future for himself with his belle idéale (who is, ironically, one of the foreigners that his political party desires to oust from the country), he is merely constructing a fantasy which, if it were to come about, would be no more satisfying than his present life, a heap of burned out illusions that add to up to precisely nothing.

By denying the possibility that dreams can ever bring happiness but are merely egoistical fantasies that will inevitably crumble to dust Tanner leaves us with his most pessimistic assessment of life so far, one that he would solemnly reiterate in his later film La Vallée fantôme (1987). Even love is shown to be a delusion, perhaps the biggest delusion of them all - a fiction we create for ourselves to satisfy our obsessive craving for acceptance and which will inevitably burst like a balloon once the ugly realities it tries to conceal have hit home. And if love is inherently delusional, what else is left? Tanner's answer is pretty clear-cut: precious little. Without dreams we are nothing.

Film Synopsis

Paul, a high-flying engineer, is proud to have been born in a Swiss town the locals refer to as the Centre of the World.  He is running for a local election when he meets Adriana, a young Italian waitress in a café.  Although he is married, Paul starts to have a passionate love affair with Adriana, and is soon prepared to give up everything for her.   However, the young waitress realises that it is not she that Paul loves but a self-made fantasy...