Barev2013 Review of A Perfect Day

A Perfect Day (2005)

A disappointing competition film from Lebanon at Locarno 2005.

[1/10 · 9 November 2014]

"A Perfect Day", directed in tandem by Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas (both fluent speakers of French), is an Arabic language film set in contemporary Beirut which deals with a missing person, in this case a man who was kidnapped and never heard from again -- one of some 17,000 such cases during the Lebanese civil war of the eighties. Basically this is a two person show, the son of the missing man and his mother, and the big question facing them is whether or not to have the missing father/husband declared legally dead so as to be able to resume life anew, or to continue 'waiting for Godot'... As part of his denial syndrome the son develops a case of narcolepsy, which is a tendency to fall asleep unpredictably at any moment, even at the wheel of his car in the middle of a traffic jam. While interesting for the view afforded of contemporary Beirut once known as"The Paris of the Middle-East", the film itself is so narcoleptic that it is likely to put viewers to sleep within the first half hour.