Reflections on Office Tigers

0 Comments POSTED: August 29, 2006 08:01 | By: Liz Mermin
OFFICE-TIGERS.jpg[The director of Beauty Academy of Kabul  explains how she approached her new film Office Tigers (right), having its world premiere at TIFF  - Ed.]

I?ve always hated offices.  The bad lighting, forced camaraderie, strict hierarchies, water-cooler banter? deadening.   I find it particularly depressing that this sterile anti-aesthetic should be the greatest contribution the West (particularly the US) has to offer the rest before we slip away into economic irrelevance. So when I first heard about OfficeTiger ? a story rich with both culture-clash potential and political significance - I wasn?t sure I could face putting in the time on location.  But nothing can be accomplished if we don?t confront our fears. 

Offices are the factories of the 21st century, rapidly spreading around the globe; this may soon be the experience over which people from all parts of the  world will bond.  I was burying my head in the sand.   My training is in observational cinema, films that immerse you in unknown worlds for the sake of the experience without spelling out arguments or conclusions, and so I spent three months watching this strange world go by, day and night, in all its frenetic tedium. 

Basic characteristics of the corporate mentality began to emerge.  The real pleasure many took in their work, their affection for their colleagues and their admiration of their bosses, was evident, as were the economic needs the jobs fulfilled; but the constant urging on to do more in the name of self-improvement, the demand that your job be your identity and the company be your family, modeled to perfection by the American CEO ? this emerged as the heart of the corporate ethos, revealing itself through the mundane comedy of daily life. 

Today?s corporate leaders are like missionaries, spreading the capitalist gospel, preaching that salvation is within everyone?s reach.   Factory workers weren?t asked to love their bosses, weren?t made to feel that they had only themselves to blame for their grueling jobs, but the corporate world wants more.  It?s a vision that?s gaining converts globally, and OfficeTiger couldn?t be a better model.  The earnestness of their belief is evidenced by their willingness to let us shoot with so few limitations ? and I hope that I have provided a fair representation of their vision.  I also hope that amidst the comedy of the mundane, the achingly familiar office dynamics that so often blend into absurdity, a few core truths about the nature of work in the 21st century come through.  

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