Sydney Film Festival 2006: A Perfect Day

A Perfect Day, directed by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige 2005.

This film was a special treat for me, since to my knowledge I have never seen a Lebanese film. After seeing A Perfect Day, I hope it won't be the last Lebanese film that I get to see.

It's really weird trying to describe this film, in a sense absolutely nothing happens, and that is not an exaggeration. On the other hand, there is a lot that happens. It really all depends on how you look at it.

The premise of the film is that Malek and his mother Claudia are finally signing the papers conceding that Malek's father, who had been kidnapped 15 years before, is dead. The entire film occurs in approximately a day and basically follows Malek, who suffers from narcolepsy, as he wanders around. Malek switches between dealing with his mother and chasing after Zeina, his on again off again girlfriend who wants to end the relationship.

Now when I say that nothing goes on, I really mean it. If you approach this film from the classical Hollywood narrative tradition, it seems like the film never goes anywhere at all. However, I feel that many of the best films eschew anything remotely close to a traditional narrative and A Perfect Day is no exception to this sentiment.

The film is a highly brooding piece of cinema and the sense of longing practically drips off the screen into the audience seats. From the marked physical absence of Malek's father, to the unshakeable sense of a city, Beirut, that itself seems to have gotten lost along the way loss and longing presents itself in every frame.

There seems to be some heavy commentary about a generation that seems to be directionless, simultaneaously crippled by the absence of parental figures and the overbearing control of tradition that remains with those figures who are still around. It's a safe bet that if you were Lebanese you probably would have a much greater insight into the film, but even without that background there is a lot to mull over.

And throughout this piece, is some beautiful cinematography. Of particular note is a sequence where Malek drives through the dark streets of Beirut wearing Zeina's contacts, all shot in the obstucted vision that one experiences when looking through a prescription that is not meant for your eyes.

Finally, the film ends as abrubtly as any film I have witnessed in a long time. I literally was thinking to myself that if something didn't happend within the next couple minutes then nothing would when the credits just started rolling, illiciting audible mutters and frustrated gasps from an audience that probably was just as unsure as I was about what we had just witnessed. As I walked from the theater down to the bus stop, each step brought the realization that what I had just seen was a type of film that too often never gets to see the light of day and a film that deep down I truly enjoyed.

****Four stars.