With Gardens in Autumn, as so often in the past, Otar Iosseliani has made a delicately flavoured, gentle, charming movie, with a characteristic surreal tinge, about what happens to us when the perpetual distraction of work is removed from our field of vision. Séverin Blanchet plays a minister in the French government who has the traditional trappings and prerogatives of power: a huge official car and residence, and even an attractive mistress (Muriel Motte), although he is not a married man, having broken up with his fiancee. A catastrophic series of strikes and demos is blamed on him - though the political process by which this happens is not shown - and the minister is forced to resign. After this, he can cultivate the joys of leisure, a little bittersweet, perhaps, but no less delightful for happening late in life: these are the gardens in autumn.

But is the film really about the sudden shift from the frantic workaday world to a time of sweet idleness? Well, not exactly. The minister's post-retirement existence seems hardly less eventful than when he was employed. Or, to put it another way, his quirky life as a minister seems hardly less desultory than the time spent kicking his heels in parks, cafes and in the street. He spends some time with his mother, played weirdly in drag by Michel Piccoli: an unreadable piece of drollery. There are odd outdoor scenes, perhaps inspired by Edouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, a punch-up between ex-servicemen, a jungle cat kept as a pet - but no very obvious distinction between work and play, except for one hilarious moment when he has a bash at rollerblading. The whole movie is inherently playful, like a farce taken at flâneur pace, and very likable.