Review of Monday Morning (2002) by Wut S — 14 Aug 2008

The mundane life pushes a man to an escape.

A French man is fed up with his monotonous life, quietly slips away from his family for liberation in Venice.

On a grand scale, this is a film about human compromise to live in society (work, family) with spirituality. When Vincent can no longer hold his yearning for freedom, he opts for an irresponsible journey to recharge the optimism of life, even though it must trades with the suffering of other family members.

Albeit the dependency of Vincent's wife, his journey mildly resembled my decision to study abroad. Human yearns for changes and adventures, but for only so long homesickness would insist. For those lucky enough to have a "home," comfort and familiarity tempt for return. Liberty and settlement are to be balanced; but in modern society where freedom rarely come with daily routines, depression is ticking away like a time bomb. The "weekend getaways" and "holiday homes" offer artificial escape of modern monotony, but are necessary because we cannot afford "real" adventures that would collapse the ever-important financial security, social foundation.

When Vincent stated that drinking wines in France is gastronomical, but spiritual in Italy, the essence of the film was right there. To break the chains is to intensify the will to live, for certain beauty can be experienced as such.

I loved how Iosseliani assigned the existential role to the masculine (Vincent) gender, while the passive aggressor to the female (wife). In modern times, husbands are stereotyped to be monetary hunters with wives playing the mother/housekeeper hybrid. (Of course the power structure of gender is constantly reshaping as seen by the Feminist movement, increase of financially successful female figures, and general liberalism.) Vincent and his wife can also be labeled as such; but due to Vincent's artistic nature, his threshold for imprisonment is low. Being chronically repressed, the limit break turns him completely irresponsible--he was desperate for a soulful recharge. What I loved most when he returns home after being "cured" in Venice is how his wife, obviously still bitter, ultimately understood why her husband left without telling. She knew that her husband had sacrificed greatly, and though she previously took his sacrifice for granted, she now would treat him with tender and forgiveness to show how thankful she'd become.