Ugandan Aids Activist Noerine Kaleeba

DATE April 22, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Noerine Kaleeba talks about the AIDS epidemic in Uganda
MARGOT ADLER, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Margot Adler, sitting in for Terry Gross.

My guest, Noerine Kaleeba has been working on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic for 15 years. Her activism began when her late husband, Chris, was
diagnosed with AIDS in the mid-'80s. Kaliba herself never caught the disease.
After dealing with her husband's illness and death, she founded TASO, one of
the earliest AIDS support organizations in Africa.

HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost 30
million of the 40 million people infected live in that part of the world. And
of the 15,000 new infections every day, 95 percent occur in Africa, south of
the Sahara.

Uganda was hit hard early in the epidemic, but its president took active
measures. Among them, he set up a committee on AIDS, and Kaliba became part
of that committee. She is now the community mobilization adviser for UN AIDS
in Geneva. Several years ago she wrote the book "We Miss You All" to help
other women who were watching their loved ones die of AIDS.

When did you first hear the word AIDS in your life?

Ms. NOERINE KALEEBA (Community Mobilization Adviser, UN AIDS): That is some
time. Must have been in the early '80s. And I think more than 1982. And
that's when I read a magazine that was describing an illness that had been
described in white homosexual men in San Francisco. And at that stage, like
I suspect many people in the rest of the world, I dismissed it as something
that had very little to do with me.

ADLER: And then you had your first real encounter, and that was when your
husband, Chris, became sick with AIDS.

Ms. KALEEBA: Yes, that was 1986, when Christopher, my late husband, was
diagnosed with AIDS. But earlier than that I had actually met my first person
with HIV. Again, that meeting was very brief and was promptly dismissed from
my life because I am a physiotherapist by profession, and I used to work in
one of the teaching hospitals, the largest teaching hospital in Uganda. So
this young man that I met in 1985 was ill with AIDS, and he had a complication
that had left him paralyzed from the waist downwards. So I had been looking
towards using--using, yes, like we do in teaching hospitals--using him for my
students to learn how to learn the skills of transferring a person who is
paralyzed from bed to wheelchair.

I went to this young man and asked his permission, asked if my students would
go that afternoon to use him, and he was very gracious and agreed. But after
inquiring from the ward sister, and when the ward sister told me that this
young man had AIDS and also warned me not to touch him, I never went back to
that young man. And that was 1985, a year before my own husband, Christopher,
would be diagnosed with AIDS.

ADLER: Now at first you didn't know it was AIDS because he was having some
symptoms for some time before, correct?

Ms. KALEEBA: Yes, because Christopher had left home, had left Uganda and had
been for a year in England as a postgraduate student. And he had intended to
stay and finish his studies in a year. And I had stayed home with my four
children. But from time to time during that year, whenever we talked with
him, he would be complaining of some ailments. But, you know, from that
distance it was very difficult to even name what the illness was. And
certainly there was no way I could have connected the illnesses that he was
describing with AIDS because at the time at least one thing I was really sure,
that AIDS did not affect people like me, certainly not people who are married
and heterosexual and not white and not living in San Francisco. So basically
in my own mind I didn't think--even when the message came to me that
Christopher had AIDS, my first reaction was denial, very violent denial,
because I felt they had made a mistake.

ADLER: When your husband was diagnosed, at that point did you have a sense
that there was a lot of stigma attached to AIDS? I think that you write that
in the beginning your first experience was one in which there was less stigma
than you later experienced.

Ms. KALEEBA: Exactly, because after Christopher was diagnosed--like I have
said before, he was living in England as a student, so he was admitted into a
hospital, Castle Hill Hospital in England. And after getting the news, I went
to England to be with him in hospital, sort of accompany him through that
very, very difficult time.

And during that time I learned a lot about AIDS. And one of the things I was
told about AIDS was that AIDS had a very huge stigma attached to it. But
during our stay in hospital at Castle Hill, we were never exposed to that kind
of stigma. We were loved. We were cared for. We were really treated as
special in a way to the extent that the discussion about stigma related to HIV
didn't hit me until we were discharged from England. We went back to our own
country, and that is when the whole Pandora's box was opened.

ADLER: You say that when Chris first came home to Uganda, when he arrived
there were people who were just there just because they wanted to see a person
with AIDS.

Ms. KALEEBA: It was amazing, a very amazing spectacle because it has to go
back a little bit. Because I didn't quite believe that Christopher would have
AIDS, when I received the news I told everybody. And this was before I went
to England. I told everybody. I told my family. I told my friends at work.
So the fact that, you know--and the way I would tell people would be like,
`Well, I think they are making a big mistake. They say he have AIDS. How can
he have AIDS?' So through that kind of denial, and kind of trying to assert
myself that cannot be true, I had told everybody.

So by the time I got to England, and I realized that it wasn't a myth, that
Christopher had AIDS, that Christopher was dying with AIDS, I suppose it was
too late for me to retrieve the information that I had shared such that by the
time Christopher came home, quite a number of people knew that he had AIDS,
but many people had never seen a person with AIDS. So the people who turned
up at the airport to receive him back, many turned up out of curiosity to see
a person with HIV and many really were very afraid.

ADLER: He spent how long in Uganda after he came home?

Ms. KALEEBA: He came back on the 30th of October, and he died on the 23rd of
January the following year. So he came back on the 30th of October, 1986, and
died on January 23, 1987.

ADLER: And what...

Ms. KALEEBA: So it was really a very short time just before he died.

ADLER: And the stigma that you experienced in Uganda, how did that manifest?

Ms. KALEEBA: The first manifestation, sadly, came from the health-care
workers. I remember the whole time because that first admission, we were in
hospital for 10 days. And the whole of those 10 days, no health-care worker
touched my husband, and no health-care worker came into the room where he and
I were staying. They would come to the door and stand at the door and inquire
about his health.

I look back now and I say perhaps it was also because I am a health-care
worker and I was determined to do what care, to give what care my husband
needed. And I was also feeling very angry and I tried to show people that I
could do it. So most of the nursing care that he needed, and he needed 24
hours' nursing care, including changing drips, including changing all his bed
linen; washing him was done by me, my mother-in-law and one wonderful, good
friend. So that was the first manifestation.

But also during that time--we have four children, and at that time our
children are very, very young. Elizabeth, who is today 26 years, was 13, and
she was the oldest of the four. And she was going to primary school at that
time. And Marion and Fiona and Kristen, they were all going to primary
school. But word quickly went around that Christopher had AIDS. So their
peers, their friends at school, stopped playing with them.

ADLER: Oh, boy.

Ms. KALEEBA: I remember Elizabeth coming home saying, `Mommy, I'm not going
back to school. My friend will not share my biscuit because she says Daddy
has AIDS. And, Mommy, do I have AIDS? And what is AIDS?'

ADLER: And what did you tell her?

Ms. KALEEBA: Fortunately, we had made a decision quite early with Christopher
that we would tell the children. So we had actually sat down--when this came
up, we sat Marion, Fiona and Elizabeth, who were older that time, and we
explained to them. Christopher and I told them that, yes, Daddy had AIDS,
AIDS is a terminal illness, and it is likely that Daddy would die soon. We
were also very open about, you know, how you catch AIDS and how you don't
catch it, which was very, very helpful because Christopher had been very close
with the children and the children, they loved to jump into his bed. They
loved to sit on his lap. They loved to be close to Daddy. They loved to hug.
And he loved that, and he drew a little strength from the family being with
him. And he worried from time to time whether they would catch the infection.

But he, during the time that he had been in England, had read sufficiently
about this disease and knew that he wouldn't pass the infection to the
children. And that helped us to remain together as a family and kind of
united against all odds, especially the stigma that was out there.

ADLER: We're talking with Noerine Kaleeba, who is the community mobilization
adviser for UN AIDS in Geneva. We'll be back after a break. This is FRESH
AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

ADLER: I'm speaking with Noerine Kaleeba, who works for UN AIDS in Geneva.
After her own husband died of AIDS in the 1980s, she founded TASO, Uganda's
first AIDS support group.

How did you come to found TASO, the AIDS organization?

Ms. KALEEBA: This is the other element. The founding of TASO was really,
again, as a reaction to--because as I described the isolation, the feeling of
stigma, the feeling of loss and, I mean, losing a loved one, but also losing
your own dignity, I began by seeking other people in similar situations
because I was very convinced that if AIDS had crossed my own front door, it
was very likely that already in my own country, it must have already crossed
other front doors.

So with the access that I had to the hospital, the teaching hospital, I began
by going to the hospital wards and asking if there was somebody with AIDS that
is admitted. And I remember one of the first people that I invited to
Christopher's room so that we could cry and pray and just talk together was a
very young couple, a man and a wife. And for me, again, that hit me very,
very vividly because in my culture, if a person is ill, they are nursed.
Because of the resource shortages, there are not enough nurses in the
hospitals. So if I need hospitalization, I need my mother or my sister or my
sibling, a woman, a girl, to come with me to nurse me.

But this young man, who struck me really vividly, I found him nursing his own
wife. And for me, it was a big shock to see a man nursing his wife. And when
I asked him, I said, `How come you are nursing your own wife?' he told me,
`Well, all my relatives have left because they were told that my wife and I
have this new disease. And they were told by the health-care workers that
they shouldn't expose themselves.' You see, there was such ignorance at that
time with regard to how the infection is transmitted that the information that
was being passed on to family members was causing panic within families.

So I began by looking for these persons, people who were, at the time, with
AIDS, admitted in the hospital, and we began meeting in the room where
Christopher was admitted. He began by sharing what he had read about the
disease while he was hospitalized in England. And that was the seed, that was
the foundation of this. And initially it was a support group for us to find
some kind of meaning beyond the diagnosis in our lives. But within a year it
had blossomed into a group and a source of information, a source of support, a
source of hope for many more. And I remember within the first year, we had
extended our membership to 500.

ADLER: I think the thing that shocked me most reading your book "We Miss You
All" and "Open Secret," I think, and some of the articles that I read about
you, was the story about your attempt to help people in your family. You
have--I may not have the figures correct, but you have at least four siblings
who have HIV, and six or more of their children that are HIV-positive?

Ms. KALEEBA: Exactly. I have four siblings, and their spouses, and, sadly,
one of my sisters recently lost her husband. So four siblings and their
spouses, and among the four, their eight children were HIV-infected.

ADLER: The thing that shocked me most, I think, was here in the West, and
certainly in rich countries, we tend to think of the word `triage' as
something that happens only in disasters.

Ms. KALEEBA: Yes.

ADLER: But you have had to make decisions, you have had to make choices as to
which of your relatives you are going to help fund antiretrovirals.

Ms. KALEEBA: And, yes, I've had to make those choices, but that has only been
made possible because of the most recent efforts that the global community has
put in reducing the costs of these medicines. So the cost of drugs in
developing countries has been relatively lowered. But even at the low price
that is available in some developing countries, the dilemmas that exist, like
in my family--today we have had to make a decision that out of the eight, only
one, my brother Francis, can be supported on ARVs. And it's a difficult
issue.

Tomorrow, I leave to go to Uganda to work. I have some work to do there. And
I know that one of the things that will be painful will be, we will have to
sit within the family to review the situation, because my sister Harriet is in
a very, very bad situation, is in a very bad state. If we don't put her on
ARVs, we might not have her by mid-June.

So Francis, one of my brothers, is now on antiretroviral therapy, but only
thanks to the fact that in Uganda you can access triple therapy for $200 a
month. But the income that Francis has from his job as a driver is $20 a
month. I have to subsidize that $20 to make available the $200. But $200, as
compared to $1,800, which was the original cost of drugs before this movement,
is different.

Now that having been said, he's carrying such--he's much healthier today.
He's happier, and his family, we are all happier. But what about the rest of
the family members? What about Andrew? What about George? What about
Josephine, his wife? What about Rebecca, the little girl? The youngest in my
family who has HIV is three and a half years. And every time I look into the
eyes of that child, I say, `How can this child continue to suffer?'

She now is undergoing treatment for tuberculosis, and she has had to endure
numerous injections. And every other day, she has an opportunistic infection
that comes up. I know that if she could access ARVs, the rate at which she
gets those opportunistic infections would be drastically reduced and she would
be happy. She would still be HIV positive, but she would be looking forward
to going to school.

So all those dilemmas, and I share them as my past, but they are dilemmas that
I see through my work on a day-to-day basis at communities and household
levels. And that is part of my role here at UN AIDS, to keep that voice and
keep that reality on the table on a daily basis when discussions are taking
place.

ADLER: Noerine Kaleeba is the community mobilization adviser for UN AIDS in
Geneva. She is the founder of TASO, the first AIDS support organization in
Uganda. We'll talk more with Noerine Kaleeba in the second half of the show.
I'm Margot Adler, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music; funding credits)

ADLER: Coming up, we continue our conversation with AIDS activist Noreen
Kaliba. Also, Kevin Whitehead reviews a new recording of the 1949 Jazz at the
Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall. And John Powers reviews the new French
film "Time Out."

(Soundbite of music)

ADLER: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Margot Adler, sitting in for Terry Gross.

Let's return to our discussion with Noerine Kaleeba, who for more than 15
years has been an activist on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
She founded TASO, one of the first AIDS support organizations in Africa, and
she has written two books to help people with AIDS: "We Miss You All" and
"Open Secret."

I know that you write that your own culture is polygamous, that you were in a
polygamous relationship. How does that issue affect the AIDS situation, and
is that changing?

Ms. KALIBA: I do write that I came from a polygamous family. My father had
four wives, and I had 28 siblings, but when I got married to my husband, I was
determined not to live in a polygamous relationship. And when he strayed from
our relationship, perhaps--and you must have read in my book, he strayed in
search of a boy child, because we only had girls. That's another one,
another...

ADLER: So he blamed you, even though perhaps it wasn't you.

Ms. KALIBA: Exactly, yes. He was fed up with me not being able to make boys,
and went out in search of a woman who would make a boy. And sadly, he came
back quite humbled by the experience, because he had another bonny little
girl, so--a lovely girl. My stepdaughter is one of my best friends today.

But, I mean, polygamy--to go back to the question of polygamy, it has almost
died a natural death. But unfortunately, I often look back in my own
childhood and reflect and say polygamy, per se, does not expose to HIV spread.
It's what the individual members within the relationship do sexually that
brings HIV to the relationship. And that's why in the messages that we
started early in this movement, we were not necessarily discouraging polygamy
per se, but we were saying, `Make polygamy safe,' because it is not polygamy
that spreads AIDS, but it is the sexual actions of the members within that
relationship. But increasingly as the economy and as issues about love and
values are becoming available to people quite clearly, polygamy is becoming
extinct, as I said.

ADLER: That brings up another question, which is the whole question of
talking about sex, not only in regard to AIDS but certainly it's very
important in regard to AIDS. How easy, or hard, for people in Africa and in
the communities you've been working with, has it been to talk about sex, for
women to talk about sex honestly with their husbands, for them to demand
protection, and is that changing?

Ms. KALIBA: Sex and sexuality is a difficult issue in any part of the world
as I know it. I don't know any country where discussions about sex have been
open, and I think we are all globally learning. But in my part of the world,
it has been even more difficult. Even today, one of the vulnerabilities that
we are trying to address, basically, is the gender imbalance in terms of
ability for women and young girls to negotiate or even discuss what they want
to do in their sex life. Many women that I cared for, many women today that
are getting infected, young women, are sadly getting infected by their one and
only sexual partner, who happens to be their husband, and who, then, must have
strayed out of the relationship and brought the virus into the household.

And women find it very difficult to discuss, you know, and say what they want
to do in their sex life. But there are increasing programs that are targeting
this particular issue, empowering women to be able to assert themselves, but
also what we have discovered recently is that it doesn't work in men of this
context, just target women without including the men. And what is now
registering success are programs that are bringing a dialogue, and instead of
empowering the woman, but empowering the couple and bringing the two together
and highlighting the value that each one has for the other and ensuring that
the discussion begins with the two, rather than just focusing on the women.

ADLER: One of the things I noticed in your book, "Open Secret," was that you
have many pages devoted to religious practices and the work of traditional
religious healers and how they interact with AIDS work.

Ms. KALIBA: Yes.

ADLER: And I'm wondering about that and what you are trying to do and what
the situation is.

Ms. KALIBA: Yes. I think one of the key realizations that we have--I think
we knew all along, but I think AIDS has loaned us the opportunity to affirm
this, and that is, human beings are spiritual, and when I say spiritual, I
don't mean religious, but they have a faith of some--and whatever they do,
particularly in relation to how they behave, is really directed by that faith,
you know? And we had the advantage in Uganda--and I think this advantage does
exist in many African countries--that the majority of Africans go to a church
of some sort. They worship, and they recognize leadership that is derived
from a church. They are very spiritual.

But at the same time, quite a big number of the same people that are spiritual
in the terms of the Christian faith or the Islamic faith, at the same time,
relate and consult traditional leaders and traditional healers simultaneously.
So some of the programs that we describe in that little booklet relate to what
did we do, for example, to bring religious leaders on board? And the key
message that I often want to share is, it is consultation, dialogue, as
opposed to confrontation.

One of the areas that I have continually lamented is the confrontation that we
public health workers have brought against the church on the question of
condom use, in the sense that we have expected the church leader to stand on a
pulpit and promote condom use. And I always say that is irresponsible. Why
should we expect church leaders, faith leaders, Christians, Muslims, to
promote condoms? Because that's not their comparative advantages. Their
advantage is in promotion of morality, so what do you do?

ADLER: So what do you do?

Ms. KALIBA: What you do...

ADLER: You yourself want to promote condom use, I am assuming.

Ms. KALIBA: Yes. Yes, what you do is, you enter dialogue with them, and
through a process that ends in them agreeing not to promote condoms, and you
agree that they aren't going to promote condoms, but for them not to condemn
condoms. And I don't know whether you have read; there's a strategy
today--it's being taken up by different countries--which is described as ABC,
as an AIDS prevention strategy; A, standing for abstinence. We have to agree
that abstinence is possible. It's not right for anyone to say that's not
possible to abstain from sex, because it is possible, and is a choice that can
be made by some people, but not by everybody.

Then the B stands, be faithful to your sexual partner, so if you are not
abstaining from sexual intercourse, then be faithful to the sexual partner
that you have.

But we also know that being faithful is a situation that is not necessarily
possible for everybody all the time. This is where the C comes in, and that
is consistent condom use--consistent. Because using condoms intermittently,
again, doesn't help.

So the dialogue that we entered in with the church was that if they would
promote A and B and remain silent about C so that if someone is looking for
support in the areas of what can be done to protect themselves, they can point
them to public health specialists that can discuss condoms, rather than
saying, `No, don't use condoms.' And once that marriage was struck, it worked
beautifully in Uganda. It is working in many, gradually, but the moment you
start confronting their faith leaders, expecting them to do things that are
not really in their remit, then the battle is lost.

ADLER: What do you think you know now that--this entire journey, what has it
left you with? If you had to say--your life has clearly changed in so many
ways, but if there is one thing that you would say that has changed for you,
that you have learned from this entire process, what would it be?

Ms. KALIBA: Wow. When I first came on what we call the front line, I was
desperate, and very soon, I lost my husband. And at that stage, it was really
a very difficult thing to even believe that there is hope beyond an AIDS
diagnosis. Over the last 15 years, I have been humbled, not only by the--you
know, because when Christopher was diagnosed, I thought we had had the worst
deal in the whole world. But today, I know better. We had a bad deal, yes,
and I still lament it. But when I look at the lives of people that I have
accompanied through this process and look at how much less they have had with
which to confront this pandemic, I am very humbled.

So I'm left with a sense of humility, but I'm also left with a sense of
continuing frustration, and that is, as a member of the global community, I'm
continually frustrated as to how little, much less we have done as a global
community. We could have done much better. Look at how we are responding to
the terrorists' attacks. Look at how we responded to recent very grave
calamities. If we had responded with the same vigor to HIV 20 years ago, the
pain that we are suffering, that we have suffered, would have been offset. So
I have hope and I ask for more, I beg for more, and I have the voice, and I
want to use this voice to beg for the international community to stretch their
hands out a little longer to this global family and help the AIDS situation.

ADLER: Well, it's been really wonderful talking with you. Thank you.

Ms. KALIBA: Thank you.

ADLER: Noerine Kaleeba is the community mobilization adviser for UNAIDS in
Geneva. She is the founder of TASO, the first AIDS support organization in
Uganda.

Coming up, Kevin Whitehead reviews a 1949 Carnegie Hall concert recording of
Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Newly issued Jazz at the Philharmonic recording from 1949
MARGOT ADLER, host:

Producer Norman Granz began his all-star Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts in
Los Angeles in 1944. Before long, the concept had evolved into a series of
touring jam sessions starring top musicians who were well-paid and who often
went out of their way to provoke an audience response. A 1949 JATP--Jazz at
the Philharmonic--concert has just been issued for the first time. Jazz
critic Kevin Whitehead says it confirms what a weird institution those
concerts were.

(Soundbite of jazz music, crowd cheering)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD:

Drummer Shelley Mann, whipping up the crowd at Carnegie Hall, February 11th,
1949. There are a lot of Jazz at the Philharmonic records, but this newly
issued one is the first with Mann or trumpeter Fats Navarro aboard. They're
two good reasons to give a listen.

Navarro was the most technically dazzling of early bebop trumpet players, but
he wasn't around long. A heroin addict with tuberculosis, he died the
following year at age 26, leaving too few records behind. Here he plays very
much in the new bebop style. So does the drummer, dropping his newfangled
bombs in the background.

(Soundbite of jazz music)

WHITEHEAD: Fats Navarro didn't pander to the audience, but other musicians
would play these crowds like a fiddle, tossing in licks sure to set them off.
The band on this jam session includes thoughtful players like bassist Ray
Brown and bebop idol Charlie Parker and his disciple, Sonny Criss, on alto
saxes. None of them roused the rabble like the swing tenor saxophonist Cliff
Pillers(ph). He played a lot of these tours, and could manipulate an audience
so well he'd work them into his accompaniment.

(Soundbite of jazz music, crowd cheering)

WHITEHEAD: Reactions like that suggest these audiences craved not brilliant
improvising, but sheer propulsion. The sound of their heroes racing around
the track was enough to make them cheer. Musicians understood that getting
the crowd to react was part of the job, but some customers didn't need
prodding. There's an odd episode during a quiet Hank Jones solo when the
audience takes over, and when they get so loud you listen to them instead of
the piano. It's one of those moments that let you hear the music in everyday
chaos.

(Soundbite of jazz music, crowd shouting)

WHITEHEAD: Even the crowd-pleasers could tire of these jousts, but Jazz at
the Phil also featured smaller groups that gave everyone a chance to settle
down. The other half of the 1949 Carnegie Hall program was for a quintet with
Fats Navarro again on trumpet, along with the George Washington of the tenor
saxophone, Coleman Hawkins. Here's Hawk on Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated
Lady."

(Soundbite of "Sophisticated Lady")

WHITEHEAD: Even if JATP was only about musicians knocking heads, it'd still
be an important social phenomenon. Producer Norman Granz insisted the
concerts be open to integrated audiences when that was far from the American
norm, and the music reflected a different kind of integration. In the 1940s
there had been some loose talk about how bebop was a totally different animal
from earlier jazz, but these concerts showed how easily musicians of different
stripes and generations could play together. These concerts fostered a
feeling of community that was hard to resist. That's partly why the roar from
the house so often matched the one from the stage.

(Soundbite of jazz music, crowd cheering and applauding)

ADLER: Kevin Whitehead reviewed Norman Granz's "Jazz at the Philharmonic:
Carnegie Hall, 1949," on the Pablo label.

Coming up, a review of the new French film "Time Out." This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

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Review: Laurent Cantet's new film "Time Out"
MARGOT ADLER, host:

The French film "Time Out," about an alienated businessman, has arrived from
Europe, where the critics loved it. It opened in New York and LA to the same
kind of ecstatic reviews. Our film critic, John Powers, says it deserves all
the praise.

JOHN POWERS:

A couple of years ago, I was talking to a dear friend in the Bay Area and
asked how she liked her job as a consultant. She told me that the only time
she liked it was when she was driving from one appointment to the next. When
she actually got there, she felt that her job had nothing to do with who she
really is, but she couldn't quit, because, well, you have to live.

A lot of people feel exactly the same way, which is why it's so easy to
understand Vincent, the unhappy executive at the heart of "Time Out," the
mesmerizing new French film that's as good as any thing you'll see all year.
When we first meet him, Vincent's on the cell phone with his wife, Muriel,
talking about his long day at the office. Their conversation couldn't be more
ordinary, except for one thing: He's lying. His company actually fired him
several weeks earlier, and thought his family doesn't know it, he now spends
his days driving around, hanging out in shops and struggling to stumble across
a new sense of himself while bucking the necessity of landing another job.

Eventually, he arrives at an elegant solution: He invents a new life. He
goes to Geneva and pretends to land a UN job aiding economic development in
Africa. Naturally, one lie leads to another lie to prop up the first, and as
Vincent keeps digging himself in deeper, we anxiously wait for him to get
caught, or snap.

"Time Out" was directed by 40-year-old Laurent Cantet, who's won huge
international acclaim for exploring the one universal activity that artists
always seem to ignore: work. His previous movie, "Human Resources," was the
smart, gripping story of a blue-collar kid who goes to college and winds up
becoming a manager at the very factory where his dad is a union worker. "Time
Out" vaults Cantet's work to a new level. Not only has he raised his sights
to the executive middle class, but his style now rivals Alfred Hitchcock's
knack for being mathematically precise, yet profoundly mysterious. This
psychological thriller pulls you in just like quicksand.

In a sense, it's strange that we should care what happens to Vincent, for he's
not especially likable, nor his quest for freedom as morally friction-free as
it might be in a Hollywood movie. In order to pay for his family's
middle-class life, Vincent actually starts bilking his old friends with a
confidence scheme, and soon he's hooked up with a black marketeer who tries to
teach him how to cross the shadow line between the criminal and the
respectable. We enjoy seeing Vincent learn the ropes of living outside
society, but Vincent himself doesn't feel altogether good about his new
freedom. He's like an ex-con who misses his cell.

The movie's carried by a riveting performance from Aurelien Recoing, a famous
stage actor who, in his first lead film role, transforms the bottled-up
Vincent into an encyclopedia of emotional nuances--little smirks of delight,
microscopic tremors of regret, short-lived glimmers of exuberance as he tools
around in his new, ill-gotten SUV.

Vincent knows that the jobs that he's fit for don't express his inner feelings
or dreams. He, too, says that the only thing he liked about his old job was
the driving. `Life is first boredom, then fear,' wrote Philip Larkin, the
poet laureate of glum ordinariness. `Whether or not we use it, it goes.'
Vincent's attempts to use his life, or at least create a fictional life freer
and more magical than his own, is not without a desolate sadness.

"Time Out's" story is very loosely based on the notorious real-life escapades
of one Jean-Claude Romand, who spent 18 years pretending to work for the World
Health Organization in Geneva and then, when discovered, murdered his family.
Cantet's too talented merely to mimic such a grisly scenario, and he gives
Vincent's tale an unexpected turn you'd never find in a Hollywood movie like,
say, "Falling Down." Although we know that things can't possibly end well,
"Time Out's" brilliant last scene offers us a vision of the modern world as at
once milder and more terrifying than anything suggested by the Romand case.
As we gaze at Vincent's desperate face, flickering with tiny pains,
dishonesties and ambivalences shot through with suffering, Cantet movingly
shows us how, in the world of work, there are circles of hell of which Dante
could never have dreamed.

ADLER: John Powers is executive editor of LA Weekly. Later this week, I'll
speak with the director of "Time Out," Laurent Cantet.

(Credits)

ADLER: The late bassist and composer Charles Mingus was born 80 years ago
today. Next week, Terry Gross will speak with his widow, Sue Graham Mingus.
We'll close with the 1959 Mingus recording, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." Mingus
wrote it in memory of the saxophonist Lester Young. We play it today in honor
of Mingus' birth.

For Terry Gross, I'm Margot Adler.

(Soundbite of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat")
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