A Perfect Day<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n Directed by Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige\/ France, Lebannon, Germany<\/font><\/p>\n It is present day Beirut. One morning,\u00a0a young man and his mother go to a lawyer\u2019s office to have his father declared legally dead so that they can move on with their lives. He has been missing for about fifteen years, since the civil war. The wife\/mother wants her son to stay home with her and mourn the death of their loved one, but he wants to see his girlfriend\u00a0who is avoiding him and he does not know why. He also has a problem \u2013 he keeps falling asleep and even goes to the doctor for tests. He has apnea, worsened by his smoking. <\/font><\/p>\n In the space of a day, the mother has to confront her inability to move on with her life and the son, who refuses to commit to his girlfriend, and keeps falling asleep, has to confront his own inability to\u00a0get on with life.<\/font><\/p>\n A Perfect Day<\/strong> is a well-toned and evenly paced film that perhaps means more to the Lebanese people than to an international audience. I thought it interesting and the metaphor of the family\u2019s experience with that of the nation, though obvious, was well-done.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Familia<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Directed by Louise Archambault\/ Canada<\/font><\/p>\n A single mother living with her teen daughter and boyfriend in Montreal, though good hearted,\u00a0is addicted to gambling and gets into debt. Her boyfriend is at his wits end, and cancels her credit cards. So she decides to take her daughter and go live with a friend in California. They load up the car but only make it across the bridge to the suburbs to the home of an old school friend who is married with two children and\u00a0is well-off. Though the mother and daughter stay there for a while, old habits die hard and they end up living in a borrowed trailer in a trailer park, friendships and a marriage in tatters.<\/font><\/p>\n Familia<\/strong> was a great favorite at the festival (if you go by the audience\u2019s reaction and the buzz), but oddly enough, it did not win any awards. It is a film that explores friendships and relationships, especially between mothers and daughters. Though Familia<\/strong> is engrossing, its inner logic\u00a0was fundamentally inconsistent. The film goes through great lengths to establish how much the single mom \u201cwanted\u201d and \u201cwants\u201d her teen daughter, but when the girl is drugged and raped at a party, and becomes pregnant, they easily take the abortion route. So any sense of transcendence through mother-child bonds is lost.\u00a0<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n La Guerra di Mario<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Directed by Antonio Capuano\/ Italy<\/font><\/p>\n Mario is an 8 year-old growing up with a foster-family in modern day Naples. The foster mother especially wants to give him every advantage but does not understand that children need limits and consistency. He has a vivid imagination, the fruit of trying to survive in the home of his birth mother before the state removed him. The foster mother\u2019s well-intentioned but obcessive care for Mario drives her husband away, and ultimately leads the state to remove him from her care.<\/font><\/p>\n La Guerra di Mario<\/strong> (Mario\u2019s War) is a very good movie and it was interesting to see the similarities between the foster care system in Italy and our own.\u00a0But though this foster mother is in denial about Mario\u2019s reality and needs, the state is blind to his needs as well. I felt like this story could have gone on because the psychological depths of both the mother and Mario needed more development and perhaps resolution \u2013 though maybe not. It is a sad tale, without much hope.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Vendredi Ou Un Autre Jour (Friday or Any Other Day)<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Directed by Yvan Moine\/ Belgium, France, Italy, Slovakia<\/font><\/p>\n In the mid-1700\u2019s a ship is wrecked on a reef near\u00a0an island in the Pacific. The only survivor is an aging actor, Philippe, from a Parisian theater company. He manages to live there on his memories and in his vivid imagination for many years \u2013\u00a0along with\u00a0the ship\u2019s dog.\u00a0Philippe salvages everything he can from the ship, including the stage, constumes and all the trappings that go with his profession. He reconstructs the stage and acts out parts. A while later, some native people come to the island and one of them stays with Philippe \u2013 and Philippe names him Friday. After many years, a French ship arrives. Philippe, who has gone through an existential if not spiritual experience, declines to go back to civilization with them.<\/font><\/p>\n Yes, you\u2019ve heard this story before. It\u2019s based on a French version of the original Robinson Crusoe<\/em> by Daniel Defoe: Vendredi ou les limbes du pacifique<\/em> by Michael Tournier.<\/font><\/p>\n There was nothing wrong with this film, if this is your style. It reminded me of a Manoel de Oliviera epic, beautifully filmed but drawn out, slow and very male in its point of view.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Perfect Day Directed by Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige\/ France, Lebannon, Germany It is present day Beirut. One morning,\u00a0a young man and his mother go to a lawyer\u2019s office to have his father declared legally dead so that they can move on with their lives. He has been missing for about fifteen years, since the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n