In this meditative, poetic comedy, a strait-laced young bureaucrat has been informed that, rather than being promoted, he is being apprenticed to the town archivist in anticipation of taking over his job whenever the old man retires, which doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon. A vengeful anarchist sets the town hall aflood, and something changes in the minds of the lad and his new mentor, so that we see them happily folding soggy, ruined official forms into boats and sending them down the river.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide