The Girl From Monday

Directed by Hal Hartley
Written by Hal Hartley

Another video rental, this one the new film from Hal Hartley.

Hal Hartley.

Damn.

The writer and director of a handful of THE best movies of the '90s (The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men, and I would even put Flirt in here, though I'm the only one I know who liked it) continues his steep (and embarrassing) dive into irrelevance with his latest piece of cinema diarrhea, The Girl From Monday.

Hal Fucking Hartley.

Hartley used to make great, small epics about human beings and all the dumb shit we put ourselves and each other through, and how every day we have to fight and struggle our way out of the messes that we ourselves have created, and how it's in all that fighting and struggling that we reach enlightenment, or relevance, or meaning, or at the very least contentment.

And then he made a movie called Henry Fool and suddenly everything went to utter crap. Hartley stopped making movies about the world, about people, about you and me, and started instead trying to making movies about The World, about People, about You and Me. I think he started listening too hard to his detractors, who accused him of making films that were too small. Hartley needed to grow up. Hartley needed to start taking on the Big Issues. Hartley needed to be taken seriously. Hartley needed to get universal.

Ironically, by making such incisive "small" films about "small" people, he WAS being universal, and by making them so well, a lot of people DID take him seriously. Doubly ironically, by taking on such Big Issues is such a clumsy and pretentious manner (think of a college sophomore at his first non-Starbucks trying to impress his friend's girlfriend by talking very loudly about Capitalism, or The Media, or why The Motorcycle Diaries is THE best movie EVER made), now NOBODY takes him seriously, and the louder he tries to "grow up", the more sophomoric he comes off.

Case in point: The Girl From Monday takes place in a near-future totalitarian society, only the dictator is not some government or military figure, but is sort of a cooperative dictatorship run by you and me (that is, You and Me). The consumer is now king, and every aspect of the individual's personal life, from his or her sex appeal to their career cache, is publicy traded like stocks and bonds at open market. Interesting set-up, right? Possibly, had he given us any real characters to care about or anything interesting for them to do, say, or think.

Sure, there's a stab at a plot, involving a secret revolution against the system and the burgeoning illegal romance between ad exec and secret revolutionary Jack (Bill Sage, who sadly is not aging well) and a co-worker Cecile (Sabrina Lloyd) - hey, wasn't this "illegal future romance" plot from some horrible Tim Robbins movie a year or two ago? And then there's a girl (Tatiana Abraco)who's dropped into the ocean from outer space, from the constellation called Monday (the girl from Monday, get it?), who is searching for a friend who arrived on Earth years before, who is now in some sort of trouble.

Get all these people in a room together, and what do they do? They proselytize. A lot. About The World, about People, about You and Me, and what's wrong with Everything. The trademark halting and poetic Hartley dialogue which is cute when talking about friendship and loyalty and brotherhood (and what were his earlier films if not stories of children in adult bodies trying to grow up), but just sounds like the aforementioned college-sophomore-at-the-coffeehouse when he's trying to say something Deep and Important about The World, about People, and You and Me.

Like I said, it's a mess. Emotionless and lacking a coherent plot or interesting characters or dialogue. It's a film about Big Ideas...which go nowhere and do nothing besides sit in a pile emitting the same abstract platitudes about Consumerism and Media Manipulation as Hartley's his last two films, No Such Thing and Henry Fool.

Plus now he's shooting exclusively on HD, which is usually bad enough, except he's using this weird, choppy, smeary, slow-speed HD, which is unwatchable. It's like Pixelvision, without the charm.

I'm not angry. Hartley is an artist, and an artist's responsibility is only to his or her own vision, and has nothing to do with whether or not I like or even accept it. It's just that I used to connect with Hartley's work on such deep emotional and spiritual levels that it's a little bit...sad? disappointing?...that he's gone to such the opposite end of the spectrum for me in such a short period of time. Maybe just surprising. Still. After eight years. Only Hartley knows if he's satisfied with his last few films. He seems to be. I'm going to miss him.

Hartley's next project listed on imdb is called Fay Grim, which is presumably a sequel to Henry Fool. I wonder if Parker Posey will be reprising her role? Someone else is going to have to tell me, as I don't really plan on seeing it myself.

P.S. Hey, while we're still on the home video tip (do the kids still say "tip"?), imagine my immense surprise when I learned that both JSA and Memories of Murder, two of the best Korean movies of the last decade, are now widely, readily, and non-Hong-Kong-bootleggedly available domestically on DVD! Go rent one or both of these movies. Now.