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.