Warning: spoilers ahead. Imagine a lighter, friendlier version of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil". Our subject is a woman who brings food carts to offices, and the day she has. She walks her cart down an endless hallway into identical offices staffed by pairs of near-identical women, gives them their food, and engages in light conversation. The same food, and the same conversation, over and over again. --Coffee, one cream, one sugar. Coffee, black. Coffee, two creams, no sugar. Coffee, two sugars. Would you like biscuits with that? No. Lovely. Would you like biscuits with that? No. Would you like biscuits with that? No thanks.-- Even their chit-chat is a matter of repetition and routine: Nice day. Yeah, but cold. Lovely day. Yeah, but a bit cold. This goes on and on, and meanwhile, there's an inspector trooping around, relentlessley examining the building and its businesses. We see him floating a feather over a heat register to check for air flow, and filling out his own endless set of forms on office quality.
-- Office environment: beige. Efficiency: beige. Service: beige. -- Were this all there was to the film, it would be pretty dull. (Yet still oddly fascinating.) Anyway, her routine is broken when she reaches of office of Chris, the dancing manager. (That's how he's identified in the credits.) His office is the only one that's different from any of the others, and he's rather different, too. "Yes, I want biscuits, and do you have any of those...." She tells him it's her last day as a push-cart woman, and he's horrified: "But who will dance with Mr. Turtle?" Here he produces a cheap wind up turtle toy , which dances around on his desk, this tango music starts out of nowhere, and the two of them do this silly dance in time with Mr. Turtle. When their dance is rudely interrupted by one of Chris' co-workers, the woman becomes angry and wheels her cart up to the roof. She's taking it easy, juggling oranges, when the inspector appears. The two of them stare each other down, he the epitome of work and efficiency, and she just broken out of a routine. She tosses him an orange, forcing him to drop his ubiquitous clipboard, and she shows him how to juggle. If you think this film sounds stupid because of my description, it's my doing. This is a really cool film.