The Girl from Monday

Being a huge fan of the films that Hartley did in the 90's, I couldn't wait to see this movie at Sundance. In fact it was one of the two movies I absolutely had to see (the other one was Mirrormask).

I can't say that I got what I expected. The movie proclaims itself to be a "Science fiction film by Hal Harley". It is neither science fiction (unless you count Kurt Vonnegut as science fiction), nor a typical Harley film. The special effects that you expect in a science fiction are nowhere to be found. In fact, big chunks of the movie aren't even in technicolor.

The whole movie is shot with very long exposure times and frame rates reaching down to 5-10 fps, leading to a totally dreamlike look.

But enough about technicalities... 'As I said the movie was a surprise but a very pleasant one. Harley uses his favorite themes of alienation (this time with actual aliens) and random, but very deep personal connections. He paints a weird but very familiar world of people treating sex as a means to getting what they want -- but with a quite interesting twist. Other current subjects, like civil liberties (ie: the lack thereof) and teenage crime are also treated to a round of deep black, dripping irony.

All in all I would recommend the movie, but not as a mindless Friday-night excursion. I give it an A.

It is a typical Hal Hartley in terms of the mood he creates. Long in-door shots, the disconcert between sound and sight. As always he uses cheap material. for instance one suspects that the black goggles that the cops wear -with the red light in the center- may be like a 10 dollar toy bought from Chinatown. But this combined with the camera moves and lights allows him to create a different world that is often visually convincing. Although I heard people in the audience murmur about the connection with the space being unconvincing, I totally disagree.

It is a meditation on capitalism where the term 'flesh market' gets literal. He weaves this theme in with reflections on the sense of the extremeness of the boundaries between individuals in modern capitalist society. How one feeds the other, in fact makes the other possible. I found it very successful although sometimes a bit didactic.

It has a promising plot line, and some quite interesting performances and direction, but overall I felt the film lacked substance.

Except for its unique idea of sex-for-points, it's filled with simple notions such as "advertising is bad" and "freedom is good." Both are valid beliefs, but neither are explored with much originality.

It played out like a weak version of an excellent novel or short story. Great soundtrack, though.

(BTW, I believe the opening credits read "A Science Fiction by Hal Hartley," not "A Science Fiction Film by Hal Hartley," as the first reviewer wrote. Not sure exactly what he means by that, but it is probably significant to Hartley.)

In which Hartley continues his exploration of the Godard cookbook. In this case, "Alphaville", with side orders of "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and various Chris Marker 'photoroman' movies.

The voice-over is not a cover for the failure to tell the story so much as a yarn-spinning technique along the lines of early Peter Greenaway or late Werner Herzog. There are some striking similarities with Herzog's recent "Wild Blue Yonder" (also billed as a science fiction fantasy).

In some ways this seems as much an exercise as an attempt to entertain; as with Godard's work the film is shot on a shoestring, with the present made to stand in for the future - Hartley tries to see how much he can say with how little.

Others have commented on the social satire; overlooked may have been the beautiful photography, the dreamlike atmosphere, the air of melancholy and loss, and the very effective music by Hartley himself (no longer trading under his "Ned Rifle" alias).

I dare say many of us miss his "early, funny, films" but that's how it goes with New York filmmakers, I guess. Where those movies were snappy prose, this is a poem.

So hopefully this was just a blip on the screen of an otherwise good career. Was the talk of the Sundance shuttle bus...but not in a good way.

Too many amateurish techniques. Voice over narration in an attempt to get a noir feeling but most of the time was actually for exposition because the story wasn't getting told on the screen.

Bad camera technique that would be okay in small doses (ie: a dream sequence) but was tiring and distracting from the opening credits onward. Kept waiting for the "real" movie to start.

The girl from Monday doesn't make an appearance for quite awhile in the movie and then gets left in an apartment to learn to use her body (or course she swam out of the ocean quite well).

Anyway...I had to leave about the time the boy was getting "raped" in the school bathroom. Time is too precious at Sundance and I went to "Rory O'Shea was Here" and the contrast couldn't have been higher between the two.

Is probably a waste of time to anyone but his fans.

D.