Office Space/35 heures, c'est déjà trop

(35 hours, that's already too much)

Office Space, not Off His Face as someone I know misheard, is a "Comedic tale of company workers who hate their jobs and decide to rebel against their greedy boss".

The story of a guy, Peter, who hates his job, and is stressed with work and most of his wacky colleagues (I can relate). He gets hypnotised and accidentally stays in this hypnotic state. But he was told to relax and chill and take it easy. So that's what he does. Peter goes back to the office after lazying around for a few days feeling chilled and ends up getting promoted. Thing is, it happens while the company is making people redundant. So when some of his mates get the boot, they plan a scheme to embezzle money from the company. There are some funny moments in the film, and I can no longer look at a fax machine without thinking about this hilarious moment (a hommage to it was in one of my favourites Family Guy episodes ever.)

Office space was released in 1999 in the US of A. A year later, a kick ass political reform took place in France. The 35 hour workweek (quite good wiki article here) which reduced the average work time for employees from 39hrs weekly to 35 (and that was sweet).

The film came out in France 2 years later and the French title is a clear reference to that law.

From the original title, Office Space, you don't get much information about what the film's going to be about. Just that it's somewhat office related.

The French title could have been translated word for word to Espace de bureau and kept the same air of mystery. But it wasn't.

Although a bit disappointing in terms of faithful translation, the French Canadian title (La folie du travail - The Madness of Work), somewhat manages to be a bit more enigmatic than the French as one might wonder if it is about stress related work issues? Or people with mental health problems at work? Or something else?

So the French title isn't ambiguous in the slightest. It just seems to cast a disapproving eye on work...

I have a feeling that this might just reinforce the stereotype about French workers (especially public servants, you know, the ones striking all the time) being a tad lazy.

I wonder why...