Screened
Locarno International Film Festival In Competition
The poignant premise of the ironically titled A Perfect Day is that it is the day when a court will be asked to declare officially dead a man who was kidnapped and has been missing for 15 years. It is a day the man's wife Claudia (Julia Kassar) and son Malek (Ziad Saad) both welcome for the release the declaration offers and dread because of the loss it confirms.
The man was one of 17,000 people who disappeared during the Lebanese war with no trace of their whereabouts leaving their families with the harrowing dilemma of waiting or moving on.
Co-writer/director Khalid Joreige's uncle was one of them and his film, in partnership with Joana Hadjithomas, depicts the agony of such a choice with great compassion. The picture should generate substantial art house interest.
Malek is a builder who suffers from sleep apnea and falls asleep anywhere if he's not on the move. With the decision at last made to petition the court regarding his father's death, Malek finds he is unable to spend time with his mother, preferring to chase a lost love, the beautiful but temperamental Zeina (Alexandra Kahwagi).
Claudia is emotionally paralyzed by what they need to do and she spends the day phoning her son, packing away her husband's clothes and freezing every time she hears a car in case it's his.
Kassar and Saad play their haunted scenes with considerable skill and Kahwagi is indelible as the girlfriend who finds that breaking up with Malek is not so easy.
The film is a little too enigmatic to be thoroughly absorbing, however, and there are scenes where nothing much appears to be happening. If Joreige and Hadjithomas had been more transparent with their filmmaking they might have more fully conveyed the effect of such a terrible quandary.
Mille et Une Productions, Abbout Productions, Twenty Twenty Vision
No MPAA rating
Running time 88 mins.
Locarno International Film Festival In Competition
The poignant premise of the ironically titled A Perfect Day is that it is the day when a court will be asked to declare officially dead a man who was kidnapped and has been missing for 15 years. It is a day the man's wife Claudia (Julia Kassar) and son Malek (Ziad Saad) both welcome for the release the declaration offers and dread because of the loss it confirms.
The man was one of 17,000 people who disappeared during the Lebanese war with no trace of their whereabouts leaving their families with the harrowing dilemma of waiting or moving on.
Co-writer/director Khalid Joreige's uncle was one of them and his film, in partnership with Joana Hadjithomas, depicts the agony of such a choice with great compassion. The picture should generate substantial art house interest.
Malek is a builder who suffers from sleep apnea and falls asleep anywhere if he's not on the move. With the decision at last made to petition the court regarding his father's death, Malek finds he is unable to spend time with his mother, preferring to chase a lost love, the beautiful but temperamental Zeina (Alexandra Kahwagi).
Claudia is emotionally paralyzed by what they need to do and she spends the day phoning her son, packing away her husband's clothes and freezing every time she hears a car in case it's his.
Kassar and Saad play their haunted scenes with considerable skill and Kahwagi is indelible as the girlfriend who finds that breaking up with Malek is not so easy.
The film is a little too enigmatic to be thoroughly absorbing, however, and there are scenes where nothing much appears to be happening. If Joreige and Hadjithomas had been more transparent with their filmmaking they might have more fully conveyed the effect of such a terrible quandary.
Mille et Une Productions, Abbout Productions, Twenty Twenty Vision
No MPAA rating
Running time 88 mins.
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