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Fernando León de Aranoa's third feature film won the Golden Shell in the 50th anniversary of the Film Festival in San Sebastian. Mondays in the sun portrays a group of friends who have worked together at the shipyard, and are now all victims of industrial restructuring. This film shows poetically and tragic-comically their everyday struggle for survival, dealing with the consequences of their unemployment (for example their visits to the dole office), their lack of self confidence, their lack of self esteem and how all this affects them and their social environments. The film is also about the conception of work as a common good and the characters class pride. For them "work" is their only possession, their treasure. The moment it is taken away, they lose everything. For this reason they see work as a collective enrichment.
The action is set in a non specific northern Spanish town, based on a real happening in the city of Vigo when ninety shipyard workers were made redundant. Fernando León de Aranoa centres the story on the charismatic Santa (Javier Bardem), who does not accept the crude reality that swallows him and who has an explanation for nearly everything. The director carefully illustrates the different social sufferings of contemporary Spain, against president Aznar's optimistic attitude "Despite everything, Spain is fine". Despite the often desperate situation of the characters, León regards its end as optimistic.
Following the Festival screening, Spain's most independent and enigmatic producer Elías Querejeta who has also worked with Fernando León on his other films, answered a journalist's reproach that the theme of the film was behind the times with: "Does someone think that this problem does not exist in this country?" Well, it does exist and it affects one and a half million people, not including their families who depend on them. León, although grateful to the comparison with Ken Loach for his choice of social issues and to the Italian comedies of the 50's which merged a particular tragic comical humour with neorealism, emphasises the importance of daily life rather than film when writing the script.
In the context of contemporary Spanish cinema, León can be distinguished from Alejandro Amenabar and Pedro Almodovar through his social awareness, depicting the deplorable state of affairs of his environment. In Mondays in the Sun as in both his of his earlier films Familia (1997) and Barrio (1998) he deals with the depiction of daily life through the portrayal of a collective. Although emerging as one of Spain's most promising directors it is his interest in special, perhaps "Spanish" themes, his choice to depict unspectacular subjects, which distinguish him from his better-known peers.
Reviewed by Agata Skowronek
Reader comments about Los lunes al sol (Mondays in the Sun)
patricia (Email address withheld) writes:
An incredible spanish plot about disemployment in which is told the life of a group of friends who always get together in the bar of one of them. I founded wonderful as every film that talks about the everyday social life. In a word: fantastic
GUSTAVO (gorditasanchez@terra.es) writes:
La realidad que muestra Fernando en su pelicula, me llena me emoción. Me demuestra que le cine vale para algo mas que entretener, y que hay personas que son capaces de mostrar una desgracia como es la del parado (desechado por la sociedad capitalista y competitiva)que gracias a su enorme sensibilidad y delicadeza, evitando el sensacionalismo barato, se convierte en "el heroe de joderse todos los dias", como lei hace poco por aqui. Un heroe mucho mas valeroso, y arriesgado comercialmente, que lucha por mantener su dignidad y el de su familia, y que nunca pierde una de las cosas que debe mantener cualquier persona: su orgullo. UN 10 para los lunes al sol
José Isral (peguerojose26@yahoo.com) writes:
Creo que "lunes al sol" es una película con una impresionante carga de pesimismo, que a lo único que invita es a la desesperanza, al tedio y al desconsuelo. De principio a fin lo que se ve es amargura: Un grupo de parados que se revulcan en su propia falta de iniciativa y espectativa ante la vida, para salir adelante ante una situación adversa. No entiendo cómo, por ejemplo, no tienen para pagar un pasaje de una orilla a la otra y, sin embargo, sí tienen para beber practicamente todos los días, o incluso, para pagar servicios sexuales. Por otro lado, es una pelicula, a mi juicio imoral, puesto que, ver a un cuarenton siguiendole el juego de coqueteos a una niña de apenas 15 años, es realmente patético. Sin mencionar las veces que mienten, engañan, roban, se son infieles, etc... En fin, que es una película que no transmite nada positivo.
José Israel
Joaquin in Vigo (Email address withheld) writes:
Many amateur critics have analyzed and examined this film in such a manner that entirely overlooks its quality as a piece of art. It is necessary to examine what this work asserts and illustrates regarding the human condition and not regarding superficial topics such as unemployment and pessimism. The latter issues are only the MEDIUM of the work of art, and not the MEANING. True and faithful examination of art reveals meaning as motivation for its creation.
In "Los lunes al sol" the meaning, the purpose, illustrate the essential characterstics that define the condition of humankind in the cosmos. The canvas is unemployment, a grey city, uselessness, abandon, greed, and its victims. The cohesion results in a portrayal of man that has not changed over the ages. Man stands alone, despite his similar company. Despite the familiar media there is a lack of underlying structure. The world is chaos and is intrinsically inexplicable. The characters are the reaction of man: frustration, anger, hopelessness, despair. Their are lights of optimism and rays of hope. A young girl who is like beautiful daylight in a dark and hungover bar. The glimmering sea on a Monday. The lover who decides not to leave just yet. And just like the frustration, anger, hopelessness, and despair, the clarity is like an air that fills the collective lung of the human soul. It is in the human imaginiation, it is perception.
Amador, in his coarse words of a seaman, concentrates the ages of pessimistic wisdom in a simple pondering: we are all one siamese twin. And when one of us "lo toma por el culo", we all do.
jose cabaca (cabaca_31@hotmail.com) writes:
is a good film we are est the film at Univ. but can U ans my question Como se trata la cuestion del desempleo como ambito para las relaciones personales en Los Lunes al Sol apoye su respuesta en los personajes principales de film.
eleni markou (Email address withheld) writes:
a masterpiece. in the great tradition of european realism, it's the film that Ken Loach should make, but never did...
perhaps, the best european film of the decade.
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