The Girl from Monday (2005)

Some special effects please

A bit cerebral, most viewers will likely need to watch it more than once to pick up the subtle nuances Hal Hartley likes to interject in his movies. Still, more or less an interesting story line that tickles the curiosity whether or not aliens from distant planets could live among us, and if they do/did, would the majority of us be able to recognize them? Being a fan of good special effects in scifi, the low budget character of this film almost ruined it for me; however, you can rely on the charisma/talent of Sabrina Lloyd here to raise it well into the realms of the watchable again. July 2, 2008

Hal Hartley slightly missteps, but nails the times

Part of the problem of being a conceptual film maker, is that your work is essentially an essay. Each piece is about something, and Hartley's back catalog is deep and great. Since Henry Fool (probably his best film) he's moved into digital cinema to cut costs. His first all digital piece The Book of Life was awful and probably his worst film, but he followed it up with No Such Thing which was a big budget film that never made it major theaters. No Such Thing suceeded, but showed that when Hartley is risking more, he puts more into the film. The Girl From Monday is Hartley's second digital release, made on a shoe string budget, but unlike The Book of Life it succeeds where the former fails. Hartley drops us into a dystopian future that essentially is the present. His characters don't exercise control by robotics or some other technology, but simply through libertarian principles taken to their extreme, neuro-economics, and the logic of commodities. In essence, they're an advertising company that commodifies sex into The Rebel Sell. Sex becomes a subsidy for competitive consumption.

The Girl From Monday's only major flaw (like a lot of independent pictures) is a little to much white space. We're at times given long semi-epic moments of solitutude to further reinforce the hopelessness of the protoganist's situation. While Henry Fool or no such featured such moments, they occur as background around the events and ideas of the film, here they take center stage similar to the desolation in Shinji Aoyama's films. The other problem is that it's digital, while Hartley's other films are beautiful, at times The Girl From Monday's low budget comes through, and despite the poignancy of the ideas behind it, it doesn't feel as complicated in it's consideration of the point as say Hartley's other work does. In other words, it's provocative, but the film doesn't ponder its points to their full ruminations. It could have been an even shorter film, or it could have been fleshed out with out as many pauses. But at 9 USD it seems priced about right, and for the amount of thought it will give you, it's worth a lot more than that. You'll probably find yourself handing it off to other people, hoping they view it too. April 28, 2008

WHAT WAS HAL THINKING?

ALTHOUGH A HAL HARTLY FAN.... I DIDN'T GET IT ?
TOO DEEP OR OVER MY HEAD MAYBE? I JUST DIDNT LIKE IT AS MUCH AS HIS PAST WORKS! MAYBE SIFI JUST ISN'T HAL'S BAG? July 9, 2007

eerie

the story is gripping, eerie and relevant, the filming and acting are brilliant, hal hartley at his best June 27, 2007

"The Word Becomes Flesh" ~ The Revolution Has Begun!

'The Girl From Monday' offers a somber, thought-provoking glimpse of a possible future where "Consumer is King" and everything else, including mankind, is nothing more than a commodity. Earth has become a corporate run world and we are stock, or property that goes up or down in value based primarily on our sexual desirablity. Good sex enhances net value while failed copulation, or rejection causes de-valuation of personal worth and a decrease in buying power.

Jack (Bill Sage) who was once a prominent figure in the corporate structure has become a leader in the "counter-revolution." As he and fellow partisians fight the "Powers That Be" matters become more complicated when Jack falls in love with a co-worker (Sabrina Lloyd) and encounters an alien (played by the beautiful Brazilian model Tatiana Abracos) from a distant planet known as Monday. She has come to on Earth in search of a missing piece of her worlds "collective soul' which was stranded here a few years earlier. Her embodiment in human form is a process known as "the word becomes flesh."

Can corporate greed and massive group progamming be overcome by a few conscious, free-thinkers? And what role does this extra- terrestial culture have to play in the reclamation of mankind?

This is not a film that stands up well to alot of repeat viewings, but it's a worthwhile watch the first time. It's the perfect film to see with a group of deep thinkers who enjoy dissecting and interpretating cinema late into the night over a good cup of coffee, or glass of wine. April 17, 2006

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