The Girl from Monday (2005)

A comic drama about a time in the near future when citizens are happy to be property traded on the stock exchange.

Director:

Hal Hartley

Writer:

Hal Hartley

Stars:

Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd, Tatiana Abracos

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bill Sage	...	Jack
Sabrina Lloyd	...	Cecile
Tatiana Abracos	...	The Girl From Monday
Leo Fitzpatrick	...	William
D.J. Mendel	...	Abercrombie
James Urbaniak	...	Funk
Juliana Francis	...	Rita
Gary Wilmes	...	Adjuster
David Neumann	...	Soldier 1
Ryan Bronz	...	Soldier 2 / Benson
Edie Falco	...	Judge
Paul Urbanski	...	CEO
Michael Cassidy	...	Ted
Normandy Sherwood	...	Emily
James Stanley	...	Doc

Storyline

In the not-distant-future, the market has taken over everything, thanks to the marketers. The consumer is king, and those who see value outside of the marketplace are "enemies of the consumer", terrorists, and "partisan" enemies that the state must dispose of. Protagonist Jack seems to be at one with the media corporations (after all, his marketing ideas led to the institutionalization of the exchange of sex for enhanced buying power), but is he somehow involved with the feeble and pathetic resistance movement? Does he love Cecile, his colleague, or is she a pawn in his game? And what of the mysterious girl from Monday? Are immigrants from the star system "Monday" really assisting the partisans?

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Plot Keywords:

watching tv | soda | partisan | terrorist | stock exchange | 

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language, some nudity and brief sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

The Possible Films Collection [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 July 2005 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Rapariga de Monday

Filming Locations:

Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$921

Company Credits

Production Co:

Possible Films, The Monday Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Color:

Black and White Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

While Cecelia is listening back to test scores, one student's name mentioned is "Warren Cuccurullo", the name of a guitarist who's played with Frank Zappa, Missing Persons and Duran Duran.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Jack: It's such a long way down, it's strange. The word becomes - flesh? The body remains... what? She had traveled light years to get here. And in the vaporous fields of her home star no one had bodies, or names, or identity. A living thought or feeling, stretching out in all directions. Not measured but desired, elegant. But here, in the flesh, the revolution had come.

User Reviews

Betaville

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.