MONDAY MORNING aka LUNDI MATIN
Year: 2002
UK: Artificial Eye Film Co
Cast: Jacques Bidou, Arrigo Mozzo, Anne Kravz-Tarnavsky, Narda Blanchet, Radslav Kinski
Director: Otar Ioseliani
Countries: France / Italy
Language: French (English subtitles)
UK: 122 mins
UK Certificate: PG contains mild language
UK Release Date: 6 December 2002
Synopsis
Since he began his career as a feature filmmaker in his native Georgia with the banned APRIL in 1961, Otar Ioseliani has created a distinctive body of work to which comedy is expressed as an essential component of the human condition. His sixteenth feature, MONDAY MORNING, follows a similar theme to his last film, the award winning FAREWELL, HOME SWEET HOME. a gentle social satire about one man's struggle in the face of an unfulfilled life, MONDAY MORNING was awarded two prizes for Best Director and the International Critics' prize at the Berlin Film Festival 2002.
Every Monday morning, Vincent is faced with the same monotonous routine - one and a half hours later of non-smoking transit to an uninspiring factory job. Back at home, family obligations always interrupt his one real passion - for painting. Vincent cannot take another Monday morning. Fed up with, his wife, his children and the eccentricities of the local inhabitants of his village, Vincent decides to see a little of the world and travels to Venice. Maybe he'll find out exactly what is missing from his life...
A comic appraisal of life's absurdities and daily ritual, MONDAY MORNING succeeds in telling a simple story with the barest of resources. A near silent comedy, there is something in the spirit of Jacques Tati in Iosseliani's wry, observational style. With a supporting cast that includes a young peeping-tom priest, a postman who steams opens people's letters, a transvestite washroom attendant and a rogue crocodile on the loose, MONDAY MORNING observes its characters and the worked they live in with a detached irony and occasional flashes of near-surrealism. This cinematic poetry is elegantly photographed by William Lubtchansky.