Book Of Hours (Video,18 mins, 2000)
A Book of Hours uses the realist codes of the road movie and documentary to critique male archetypes, disorientated in a parody of the drive-by peripheral vision of the de-centred city. Two land surveyors on their years’ drive through a suburbanised sprawl of new homes become the harbingers of a new dark age.
Updated themes for each month taken from the medieval Book of Hours calendars connect the journey: December’s Hunting scene follows a real life fraud investigator closing in on a young family. In Harvesting a corner shop keeper shares his torment of dealing with shoplifters that reap his store. Similarly, in ‘Keeping Warm’ a bouncy castle salesman’s forced joviality wears thin as he struggles to keep warm. His heating and emotional world have broken down.
As the two surveyors travel together they begin to see their own futures ahead as a series of vanishing points.
A Book of Hours made with financial support from the Arts Council of England.