Short film
September 28th 2006 06:14
A strange Italian short, whose title I've never known, or else forgotten, where a man goes to the back of a store and finds a bookshop where all the books are ridiculously expensive. But yet, astonishingly, there are customers who come in and happily pay the prices. He confronts the storekeeper, who explains it's not just the book that is sold, but also the time to read it.
The man is incredulous, and the storekeeper elaborates with the thought that it's not such a strange thing to buy time –- that, in fact, every transaction is in some sense a purchase of time. (In the same way, perhaps, that Gordon Gecko on "Wall Street" says it's all about saving time.) Then there's a montage of various ways the storekeeper sells his products —- gangster-types hold up trains to allow a passenger a few more minutes, a young stud preoccupies a man's wife to give the man a free hour for a week, etc.
Flash back to the store. The man finds on the shelves a series of books – something like the greatest works of western philosophy, or of western literature. The storekeeper is dubious – "I can quote you a price, but I do not think you will be willing to pay it". -- "Try me," says the man – so the storekeeper takes out a calculator, works out the amount of time to read a page, then the amount of days to a read a book, and comes to a total of three years for the series, and a price of a few million lire (or something like that).
The man agrees to pay, then there's a scene cut, and predictably, in the next scene, he's happy and content, a book in his lap, in a prison cell.
The man is incredulous, and the storekeeper elaborates with the thought that it's not such a strange thing to buy time –- that, in fact, every transaction is in some sense a purchase of time. (In the same way, perhaps, that Gordon Gecko on "Wall Street" says it's all about saving time.) Then there's a montage of various ways the storekeeper sells his products —- gangster-types hold up trains to allow a passenger a few more minutes, a young stud preoccupies a man's wife to give the man a free hour for a week, etc.
Flash back to the store. The man finds on the shelves a series of books – something like the greatest works of western philosophy, or of western literature. The storekeeper is dubious – "I can quote you a price, but I do not think you will be willing to pay it". -- "Try me," says the man – so the storekeeper takes out a calculator, works out the amount of time to read a page, then the amount of days to a read a book, and comes to a total of three years for the series, and a price of a few million lire (or something like that).
The man agrees to pay, then there's a scene cut, and predictably, in the next scene, he's happy and content, a book in his lap, in a prison cell.
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