Horizons - Awarded Films 2002 / Lundi matin / France, Italy 2002
The comic tale of a French worker who escapes a dull job and an unbearable family. He takes refuge in Venice for some time but, of course, soon realises that one cannot escape life’s restrictions and responsibilities. The movie won the Best Director Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale.
Monday morning. Vincent wakes up at five o’clock, climbs into his beat-up old car and drives an hour and a half to a factory where he’ll spend the entire day in dull and monotonous work – and to top it all he can’t even smoke. After getting back home he’d like to paint a little but family duties keep intruding into the solitude of his studio. Work, wife and kids make his life a living hell. So one day Vincent buys himself a ticket to Venice and simply takes off. Finally he is able to enjoy an ordinary day. He walks through the streets of the town and meets a certain Carlo who offers him a place to sleep over. The alarm clock rings frightfully early: it’s Monday morning and Carlo’s job at the factory (a place where smoking is prohibited) is hard and tedious. Vincent decides to keep moving though he doesn’t know where he’s going. When one evening eight months later he finally returns to his house in the French countryside he finds that his family has barely noticed his absence. He wakes up at five in the morning, climbs into his beat-up old car and drives an hour and a half to a factory where he’ll spend the entire day in dull and monotonous work – and he can’t even smoke. The movie won the Best Director Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale.
122 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Otar Iosseliani
/ Screenplay Otar Iosseliani
/ Dir. of Photography William Lubtchansky
/ Music Nicholas Zourabichvili
/ Editor Otar Iosseliani
/ Producer Martine Marignac, Maurice Tinchant, Roberto Cicutto, Luigi Musini
/ Production Pierre Grise Productions, v koprodukci s/in co-production with: Mikado Film, Rhone - Alpes Cinéma
/ Cast Jacques Bidou, Arrigo Mozzo, Anne Kravz-Tarnavsky, Narda Blanchet, Dato Tarielachvili- Ioseliani, Anna Lamour-Flori, Myriam Laidouni-Denis, Adrien Pachod, Pascal Chanal, Radslav Kinski, Lili Lavina
Otar Iosseliani (b. 1934, Tbilisi, Georgia) studied music at the Tbilisi conservatoire, mathematics in Moscow, and then film direction at Moscow’s VGIK film school in 1956-61. His debut feature April (Aprili, 1961) was immediately banned by the censors. Since the eighties Iosseliani has lived primarily in France and has made most of his films there, including Favourites of the Moon (Les favoris de la lune, 1984), the film that made an international name for the director. At this year’s Berlinale Otar Iosseliani won the Best Director Silver Bear for his latest film Monday Morning. Filmography (selected): Lived Once a Song Thrush (Igo shashvi mgalobeli, 1970), Pastoral (Pastorali, 1975), And Then There Was Light (Et la lumiere fut, 1989), The Butterfly Hunt (La chasse aux papillons, 1992), Brigands – Chapter VII (Brigands, chapitre VII, 1996), Farewell, Home Sweet Home (Adieu, plancher des vaches!, 1999).
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