AllMovie

A deliberate and meditative plunge into the beatific poetry of everyday lives, Harald Friedl's documentary Out of Time crisscrosses four biographical portraits of aging European small business owners: a button merchant, a butcher, a leather salesman and a pharmacist. Friedl stretches his account of each subject over the daily progression from store opening to store closure, using each profile to reflect simultaneously on the wonder inherent in a slowly-paced life as the world rushes by beyond the confines of the shop, and the forces of big business that close in on the said proprietors and make it increasingly difficult for the smaller entrepreneurs to operate.