L'ottavo giorno

I saw this film first on my way home from Paris to Newark aboard Air France in August 1996. The film itself I believe is quite a masterpiece. It's the kind of film that people should be making. I still think Daniel Auteuil is one of the sexiest actors around. In this French film, he plays a divorced father and businessman who has lost his zest for life until he across a Down Syndrome man who lives in an institution with other Down Syndrome patients. The actors including the actor who actually has Down Syndrome create a believable friendship and relationship between these two unlikely men. Daniel's life and ours changes forever with the Down Syndrome man. He realizes that life is not just work and not play but for the living and loving and that's what life should be all about. The ending is kind of silly though but I still think it's one of my favorite movies. It's enough to bring a tear to your eye.

This film is about the unlikely friendship between a businessman and a man with Down Syndrome.

The character development in this film is excellent. We get to believe that Harry is a businessman who neglects his family, and Georges is an innocent man who craves loving and care from the "normal" society. Acting is excellent, and the Cannes best actor award is well deserved.

The fantasy scenes in the film highlights the fact that Georges misery towards his abandonment by his family, and his desire to be treated like a normal person. The song that gets played repeatedly also reinforces this message. The film shows that people who are mentally handicapped are good natured. We have been treating them with discrimination and neglect, a fact that is highlighted by the scene where Georges gives a present to the waitress in the kitchen). If we get to understand and share these people's world, both we and the mentally handicapped can become very happy.

I was so drawn into the film and the characters' emotional experiences. It is a touching film for good natured souls.

Foolishly, without bothering to learn any more about it than that it involved Daniel Auteuil and a guy with Downs Syndrome, I avoided this classic til a couple of days ago when they were offering the video for silly money. Let me put my ten cents in with every comment I have read here immediately and state categorically that this film is a JOY. Okay, you know going in that a major character is handicapped so you figure that at some point the movie is going to manipulate your emotions and you're ready for that but, like most things, it's all in the wrist, and this one has an extra metatarsal. It is, of course, the salesman who spends his life lecturing on how to manipulate the buyer who is himself manipulated by Georges - nice touch naming him after the 'normal' one of the two buddies in 'Of Mice And Men', where the retarded Lenny is looked after by George - the irritating, exasperating, impossible lovable guy who walks into his life after Harry nearly ran into his. Okay, to make this work you need to create a character who is the complete opposite of Georges, a guy literally too busy making money and being successful to stop and smell the roses. A guy who misses his daughters dreadfully since his estranged wife - it's not clear if they are divorced or just separated - took them away yet is so busy that he completely forgets to pick them up and leaves them waiting alone at the train station; who opts to attend a conference on his daughter's birthday, you get the picture. Georges misses someone, too. His mother, who is dead. Time and again in his loneliness and hurt he conjures her up and we see the great love they shared. This then, is the back story and the scene is set for what Hollywood used to call a 'meet-cute'. Here, Auteuil, in despair, his mind in a turmoil, driving through the rain runs over something large which he failed to see. Turns out to be the dog that had attached itself to Georges who has lit out from his residential home after watching all the other residents being picked up by relatives. Now all that is left is for Georges to 'change' Harry, to humanise him if you will and this he does in spades. This is a film chock full of laughter and tears and the fact that a leading French actress Miou-Miou agreed to play what is little more than a cameo as Harry's estranged wife speaks volumes for the quality of the writing. Now and again the cynicism surrounding the gongs of filmdom, especially the Oscars, get it right and how appropriate that BOTH these superb actors copped the 'Best Actor' nod at Cannes. 10/10

This film is close to be my favorite piece of celluloid. There is really not much I'd need or want to say here. Except maybe "See this film" and "Enjoy the excellent work by Daniel and Pascal", who carries you through this neat, funny and heartbreaking story about 'spending your eighth day' - your own day!

Seeing this film made me think seriously about how I spend my eighth day = my life! It appears, that some of us are wasting precious time doing things we think we need to do. Either if it's pleasing a career or just consuming TV-shows and ballgames. What we tend to miss is the satisfaction of being something for another person - make a difference. About taking room and time to be spontaneous and live - NOW! (on the eighth day)... At least that was what I got from 'The Eighth Day'.

For anyone with a moderate sensibility, a moderate feeling of the human and humane condition, for anyone capable of getting above the Hollywood ilk, for anyone who is satisfied seeing cinema which does not have a series of Seagals/Willis/Van Dammes blasting the brains out of anybody or seeing who gets into bed with whom, for anyone whose intellectual level reaches a capacity to grasp, sympathise with, comprehend, laugh WITH, cry WITH natural tender heart-warming hilarious compassionate HUMAN BEINGS, `Le Huitième Jour' is waiting for you. Jaco van Dormael has not achieved simply a masterpiece, that would have been too simplistic; he has achieved one of those rare monumental works of art in the cinematographic world which defies any kind of encapsuling. Is it a drama? Is it a comedy? No: it is the story of Georges, a wonderful funny pitiful laughable loving frightened beautiful personality, a sufferer of the Downes Syndrome. It is a story which has you laughing through your tears, but this is not one of those classic tear-jerkers; this film moves through a world that has you at once mixing your feelings of compassion or pity or even shame with those of admiration, warmth and even love. A successful banking salesman, Harry, bumps into Georges: they were both going in opposite directions with absolutely opposing ideas, problems and priorities; skillfully van Dormael melts these two unlikely men into a warm friendship, but which is so much more than the good buddy friendship of those having a beer down the road. This is a relationship which develops into a profound needing by both for the other. The cuasi-surrealist scenes fit in perfectly: Georges recalls (or invents) past scenes of his life while either day-dreaming or sleeping; even the almost phantasmagorical final scene is totally correct. The only scene which might be considered a little out of place is when they steal a bus and drive it out of the show-rooms. However, this does not detract from the whole. This film is a monument. Even if your French is not up to much, please bear seeing it with sub-titles. `Le Huitième Jour' is worth the trouble. As for anything else, well, just read the following commentaries – I go along with all of them. This film is a joy, it is majestic, it is unique. If you have seen `Rain Man' which I consider an excellent film, you must see this one: it is far superior because it has not the superficial veneer of famous Hollywood-produced world-renowned actors; it has Pascal Duquenne and Daniel Auteuil – TEN oscars for these two, and three more for Jaco van Dormael. Who cares…………? Yes: 11 out of 10 if the IMDb rating doesn't break down under the strain.

Magnifique! Chapeau!