Our second film review comes from writer Trish Thalman, who says this is a “poignant and sensitive film with moments of humour and candour” A film focusing on residents of an apartment building in Lausanne, people dealing with dirty laundry every day, physically and metaphorically.
“The Laundry Room” -” La Clè de la Chambre à Lessive” by Floriane Devigne and Frédéric Florey
Saturday 20 April at 14:00 – Salle Communale and Sunday 21 April at 19:30 – Capitole 1 cinema (72 mins)
Link to buying tickets for this film on line here
“Claudina” holds the key!” In this case, the key to the communal laundry room of a low-rent apartment building in Lausanne. The inhabitants of the building are a mixture of people from Switzerland and various other countries and make up the Swiss ‘underclass’. The laundry room of the building is the size of a small storage room, in a clean and tidy, ground floor entrance area. It holds four washers and four dryers, and the door is locked. It is next to the elevator where people wait patiently for it to arrive. When it does arrive, it disgorges a number of people at one time. There is much activity throughout the day in the foyer, with the coming-and-going of the inhabitants.
The new cleaning woman for the building is Claudina, a bright and lively woman who says that cleaning is hard work and not a terrific job. She is responsible for managing access to the laundry room. In the past, the laundry room did not operate according to any set rules and mostly there was chaos, arguments and a rogue key that kept getting “lost”. Now Claudina will make an attempt at order with times and dates set for everyone to do his or her washing (“people need to follow rules”). A white board with a colour code is designed and hung on the laundry room wall. We see that there is confusion and misunderstanding about how ‘the rules’ will work. Everyone has an opinion of how the rules should operate, mostly related to what suits them the best.
Residents sometimes don’t have the money to pay to do the laundry
Daily life goes on among the residents of the building. The police arrive. A recently single man is told he has to move to a smaller apartment (what shall he do with the furniture?) , a woman expresses her ambitions to work for Rolex (until she learns their workrooms are not in Lausanne). One day Claudina wonders why the people scheduled for the washing day have not come to use the laundry room. It is because that week they do not have the money to pay to do the laundry.
The parade of colourful characters who spend time in the foyer ranges from a boisterous, edgy woman who doesn’t want her dirty laundry to be on TV (pointing to the security camera ‘eye’ in the laundry room), two young ‘wanna-be’ hip-hopsters in outlandish, trashy ‘bling’, four young girls posing and preening for the camera while engaging Claudina in a discussion about religion, and a sad, squabbling woman who quotes Zola and Jacques Brel when arguing with nearly everyone, especially Claudina.
All are dealing with dirty laundry every day, physically and metaphorically.
This is a poignant and sensitive film, with moments of humour and candour, patience and anxiety, along with the daily noise of washing machines and dryers.
Trish says “I particularly enjoyed the film, as I have learned to “follow rules’ for the laundry room in the apartment building where I live. The key to the door was ‘lost’ a few years ago. The door is open all the time. A piece of paper is taped on the door with the names of who washes what day and what time. The system can work!”
Photo below – Trish Thalman