Hal Hartley's characters float just a couple of inches above reality. This gives even the grittiest of them a childlike innocence that would otherwise be incongruous with the worlds that they inhabit. The most explicit example of this is the amnesiac gangster in Amateur, who, with his past detached from him, is perplexed by the bits of it that he discovers. Jack, whom we follow around the "dictatorship of the consumer" in The Girl from Monday, is similarly innocent.

Bill Sage, a Hartley regular, plays the stylish, brooding Jack, who is the ad whiz architect of the campaign leading to the revolution that put Triple M - Major Multimedia Monopoly - in control of all aspects of society, including the government. Every individual now has a market value, and one purpose: working toward economic primacy. To that end, sex can only be had in order to increase one's buying power, which can be insured against devaluation due to the delinquent behavior of a partner. The Girl (Tatiana Abracos) of the title is a newly arrived extra-terrestrial "immigrant," whom Jack finds and seeks to protect from the authorities. Jack leads an underground resistance that aims to destabilize Triple M's infrastructure through bloodless sabotage. William (Leo Fitzpatrick), a bright teenager, is an operative in the resistance, who seduces Cecile (Sabrina Lloyd), Jack's colleague, into having sex only for pleasure. Cecile's conviction and sentence for this crime lead her to join the resistance.

A hint of Jack's innocence, I persume, is the economy Chevrolet that he drives, which is otherwise inexplicable. Despite having helped create the dystopia, he has not succumbed to its spin, thus preserving his internal innocence. As in all Hartley films, the dialog is uttered as if it were involuntary, and what comes out sounds refreshingly unprocessed. His deadpan verbal style grabs you while you laugh at the odd humor. An example:

He took me to a party where people fuck just because it feels good.

I don't know, however, why he chose to burden this movie with so much narration. Apparently he wanted to reach audiences other than the Hal Hartley loyals, so, presumably, he thought that he needed to elucidate more. Whatever the reason, it makes the film less than interesting, as does the obvious "ranting." Then again, he wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know and perhaps I was not one of his target audience for this one.

Unlike his dialog, the movement in his films is visibly choreographed. In an interview about No Such Thing, he said:

I do very precise blocking, just because I like geometry and the physical activity that constitutes the picture.

This was less obvious here, though. Instead, he conveys dissonance by using jump-cuts and opposing angular shots. This works very well. It is also a beautiful piece of digital videography.

I await Hartley's next, which is the sequel to Henry Fool, one of the movies that are close to my heart.

[My del.icio.us: Hal Hartley | film | movies]

5:46:44 PM