Otium

A quiet, detached drift through empty luxury spaces, where cold digital work and warm celluloid memory leave a lingering sense of dispossession.

Directed by

Christopher Beaulieu

Genres

Drama

Starring

Eliza Martin, Claire Shenstone-Harris

Overview

Hanna is a real estate photographer from Mississauga who commutes daily to Toronto to snap pictures of luxury apartments for a network of shady, elusive corporations. With his debut feature, director Christopher Beaulieu provides an illuminating insight into the notion of liminality and the economic dispossession of younger generations. Favouring a detached approach, where the warmth of his celluloid images clashes with the cold functionality of Hanna’s digital photographs, where the nostalgia of past prosperity seamlessly seeps into the film material, Otium shows a rare kind of lucidity. Probing the spacious depths of empty dwellings, it tells of the contemporary Tantaluses of Hanna’s generation, for whom the gig economy provides dreams of wealth that it will make sure to keep unfulfilled.

How it feels

Melancholic, cynical, tense and earnest. Slow-burning and demanding.

About

Class, work, isolation, ambition

Content

Mild language. No violence, gore or sexual content.

Note

Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

Your rating is saved. See your suggestions, or find titles like this one below.

Rate it, and Mesmero finds titles that feel like it. You do not need an account.

Search YouTube for a trailer (opens in a new tab)