Customer Reviews

Mondays in the Sun

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

MONDAYS IN THE SUN can be viewed as a bleak moratorium lived out by shipyard workers in a Spanish community who have been laid off thier jobs without apparent reason. Some of the characters react by accepting menial jobs as temporizing, their wives work packing smelly tuna in cans, and others react with a venom that is only slightly beneath the skin and strike out at the establishment for allowing their jobs to be taken by cheaper foreign countries (ships will now be built in Korea). Sound familiar? Well, here in a minimal setting we have all of the chaos and loss of dignity of the unemployed of the world portrayed by a talented cast and directed with realistic fervor. Javier Bardem once again proves that he is a consummate actor, taking the lead role of a man without money, job, and respect and somehow finds humanism in this grim part. The story progresses slowly, not unlike the sad days of the men who while away their useless lives in a bar owned by on of their comrades. In this micro setting we are given macro feelings and emotions and a sense of camaraderie that overcomes the sadness of their lives. This is not an entertaining movie. This is a contemporary statement about a large part of our society and can't help but cause a twinge of association in all of us.

"Mondays in the Sun", directed by Fernando León de Aranoa, is a movie where not much happens. Despite that, it is worthwhile seeing, and remembering...

Why?. Because it tells us the story of a group of friends, former workers in a shipyard, who were sacked from their jobs and are unemployed. The spectators will watch them look repeatedly and uselessly for a new job, and deal with being unemployed and old in a society where most jobs are for young people. As a result, viewers are likely to realize that having a job isn't only about earning money, but also part of who we are, to a certain extent. And in the case of most of these men, their identities are in need of a redefinition that gives their lives new meaning.

This story takes place in Spain, but it could have been set in many other places. "Mondays in the Sun" is a film about unemployment and friendship, and those are things that are everywhere. As such, you are highly unlikely to find the message of this movie irrelevant. Even if you have a job (and that is my case), you probably know that some people don't, and that they suffer the consequences of that lack.

It is pertinent to point out that this isn't a film that will make you laugh. It is somewhat gloomy at times, and the actors play well the roles of people on the edge, eager to strike out at whomever is near them. Santa (Javier Bardem) is specially impressive as a man who doesn't have a clue regarding what to do with himself now that he doesn't have a job.

Another of the characters of this story is Serguei (Serge Riaboukine), a former Russian astronaut who is in Spain looking for a job. Serguei tells the others a joke: "Two old party comrades meet and one says `All that we were told about communism was a lie'. The other says `Yes, but the worst thing is that all we were told about capitalism was true'. In that silly joke, said by chance, we can find the root of the problem that aflicts these men...

Truth to be told, "Mondays in the Sun" tells us what happens to those left behind by capitalism. Of course, capitalism is not always good, but all the other systems are even worse. However, that doesn't mean we can deny that our system has problems that must be solved. This movie gets that point across powerfully, and because of that I highly recommend it.

Belen Alcat

I saw this movie in Barcelona, Spain in May 2003. It is so realistic. It portraits the lives of those without a job in Spain, but it also can reflect social reality in any country. The characters in the film are mature men sharing the same preocupation "el desempleo". We see their ordeals applying for jobs, but they never get them. They are frustrated. It is very touchy and it made me think for days. I give it 5 stars. Teneis que verla!

I saw this movie this past fall in Spain and it has left me thinking about it to this day. For anyone who has ever lost their job, this movie will hit home. It touches real issues and real reactions to those issues. If you have the opportunity to see this movie, please do. I hope it sends your emotions into full speed. It is a very touching a realistic story about the harsh realities of life and friendship.

How can one one be entertained by a movie about the unglorious lives of four laid off shipyard employees in the grim setting of an economically depressed Spanish coastal city? Certainly, the slow pace of bar room banter coupled with the latent rage of the characters do not make for gripping drama. Yet, for the patient viewer, this award-winning Spanish movie becomes cinema verite at its best. The many subtle shades of human emotion and motives in the lives of these characters as they precariously tread in unemployment, are rendered with an unhurried pace which matches the reality they face daily of no real exit from misfortune other than to console themselves with each other. The movie turns out to be a winner!

When this movie was made, viewers on this side of the Atlantic may well have regarded its unemployed shipyard workers as losers who might have made something of themselves if they'd just been more resourceful instead of waiting for some outside agency to solve their problems. Now in the current economic crisis in the US, workers of all kinds are losing jobs by the millions, and the experience of the "losers" in this film is a whole lot more relevant.

Javier Bardem's Santo is the most articulate of the bunch and explains most clearly what was in fact lost during the layoffs that put them all out of work - the unity and solidarity that they once had as a community of working men. Willing, so he says, to work at all costs to preserve that community, they were broken instead by a company ready to sell-out in the face of foreign competition. Drifting now in mid-life, they must fight self-defeat and humiliation. Having given the best years of their lives contributing to a social order they'd been encouraged to believe in, they are now cast off as useless.

Clinging to his pride as a man and a skilled worker, Santo helps prop up the men around him, using anger, humor, and wit to keep them going, while refusing to let them feel alone and abandoned. His older friend Paulino keeps going to job interviews, dyeing his hair and borrowing his son's sweater to appear younger. Another friend, Jose, is at the point of losing his wife, who is the wage-earner of the two, holding down a miserable job in a fish cannery. While the film sounds like a downer, there are also belly laughs and moments of sheer delight, as when the men join two teenager girls at a karaoke bar to sing "Volare."

Not a film for everyone. If you want a strong plot and lots of action, don't bother. You'll hate it. Watch instead for a brilliant performance from a portly, bearded Javier Bardem and an excellent supporting cast, including Luis Tosar. The script is also strong, as characters debate the meaning of their situation. There's a lovely understated soundtrack, as well. It's probably best to watch the making-of featurette first, which provides an informative context for the film for non-Spanish viewers.

If you have ever felt the sudden sting of hopelessness and helplessness and frustration that come with being unemployed,unmarketably too old and saddled with a sense of worthlessness,cast adrift,you will understand all too well MONDAY IN THE SUN.a painstaking look at six dear friends who have been laid off from the local shipyard.Director/writer Fernando Leon de Aranoa has crafted and filmed a very beautiful and quite intimate character study of these friends who meet at the local bar,discuss,complain,fight,sulk and find some humor in their situation.For film lovers who enjoy a well told story with exceptional acting that NEVER feels like acting,but rather a "fly-on-the-wall" observance of loss of human dignity,I can think of no better film.Unlike THE FULL MONTY, that turns tragedy into humor, MONDAYS IN THE SUN quietly stays focused on the ponderous issues at hand,yet never becomes preachy or heavy-handed in the least.This is a wonderfully thoughtful treatment of the dignity that one feels lost when work is not available.Truly 5 stars.Though Javier Bardem gets the top billing in this Spanish film,the movie is really an outstanding ensemble piece with an unusually intense bonding among all of the characters.The R rating for this film is ludicrous!!! Apart from the F word, there is nothing that anyone can find an objection!
Excellent companion films would be BRASSED OFF, THE FULL MONTY,MATEWAN,LAST RITES and GERMINAL.

"Mondays in the Sun" by Fernando León de Aranoa. Is a film which, as many critics have noted, revolves around Rico's Bar. It is the space where the defeat, its memory and the personal and collective failures represented by the laying off of shipyard workers in a town in Spain's Galicia region takes place. The bar, however, is more than anything a metaphor for the desolation of the present of the squalor of forced `relaxation' and of the immobility of time, which is lived in the vain hope of a redemption. The bar, set up by Rico - one of the laid off workers - serves as the place of exile where the former workers develop their survival strategies. Anyone whó has ever felt the pain of unemployemnt, teh depressing effect it has on persoanl relationships and self esteem should watch this film. I found it truly remarkable and features a wonderful performance by Javier Bardem as 'Santa', an actor who often tackles social issues. the film will apeal to anyone who appreciates the cinema of Ken Loach, as it deals with the very themes that characterize the great British director's work. I saw the film in the origianl Spanish, and if you have to get a subtitle edition or wyou will miss great perfomances. Perhaops the most striking thing, in my opinion, in the film is a simple line pronounced by Sergei, a Russian emigré character who says: "They told us wonderful things about communism and they were all false. They told us horrible things about capitalism, and they're all true". This apparently simple line speaks volumes about the film and its portrayal of what is one of the saddest aspects of modern life in a society that is losing all idealism

... brought down Communism in Poland, but it was no match for Capitalism in Spain.

That's a paraphrase of the joke told by Sergei, the only immigrant among the laid-off Spanish shipyard workers: one Russian says to the other, "Everything they told us about Communism was a lie!" the other worker answers, "Yeah, and everything they [their CP Comrades] said about Capitalism was true!"

Capitalism has failed for these guys. Their shipyard 'downsized' the workforce peremptorily, the workers not laid off went on strike in solidarity, violence broke out - as the shipyard owners very clearly expected and hoped - and now the shipyard is closed and there are no jobs for men in their forties. The most pragmatic of the six friends has collected some severance pay and opened a bar where the other five hang out together, sharing what money they have, sharing their anger, getting on each other's nerves but clinging together desperately, having no other resource. There's no other unifying story in this film; each of them has a situation outside the bar, a life extraneous to their male bonding. Two of them have wives, two have kids, one had a wife whom he pretends will be coming back, one of them - Santa, played by Javier Bardem, the cockiest of the crew, effectively the ringleader - seethes with pride and resentment and dreams of Australia. He's also the randiest, with money somehow or with 'charm' enough to attract a Babe as well as flirting with his barkeeper-buddy's teenage daughter. Santa is half obnoxious S.0.B and half true blue. In the end, he's the mourner and the scorner, the cogent critic of globalization and the ringleader of a stupid prank that leaves the friends all floating adrift on a stolen ferry.

There are some very funny scenes in this film but the humor is always the sort to make you grit your teeth. In fact, the loyalty these six guys show to each other is the only relief from ugliness and failure in their run-down rusted defaced world. And it's the ensemble acting of the six - Bardem, Luis Tosar, José Egido, Enrique Villén, Celso Bugallo, Joaquín Climent, and Serge Riaboukine, all superbly individualized - that redeems the grimness and plotlessness of the film. The daughter - Aída Folch - and the long-suffering wife played by Nieve de Medina are both spot-perfect in their roles. This Goya Award winner was made in 2003, before Bardem became too recognizable to anglophone audiences from his role in 'No Country for Old Men.' It's a handicap for any actor, being recognizable, but Bardem is convincing anyway.

Whatever socio-political relevance you might choose to see in this film, what makes it powerful is the gritty realism of the script and the sympathy each actor coaxes out of us for his character.

I just saw this movie at the 8th Busan Film Festival and can't quite get over how good it was. It works on so many levels and really aches with realism. To begin with it reminded me of The Full Monty, in terms of subject matter, but as the movie progressed I found it to be so much more than that. Aranoa's film moves very slowly and seems almost play-like in its insistence and total emphasis on the actors and their thoughts (I wouldn't be surprised if it started out its life as a play). The script is absolutely flawless and has so much depth whilst still retaining a sense of humour. It is depressing as hell (the scene in Amador's flat, for example) but funny and light (the script is littered with telling quips and jokes) at the same time. Santa is also a gem of a character.

A must-see movie!