Fantastic!

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Kind of like an episode of X Files.... Girl from Monday has a basic outline of a plot, but we are given more questions than answers. "Someone" from the future comes back looking for "someone else". There's an underground gang of revolutionaries, which keeps almost getting caught. And in the future, somehow sexual intercourse between people has monetary value... but so many inconsistencies here. When William and Cecile have unauthorized love, only she seems to be caught and punished. Yet when Jack and Cecile ALMOST make love, only Jack is punished. The cops of the future seem much more adept at catching people making love than bombing government buildings. and Jack holds down a full time job that does... what, exactly? The basic premise is actually really good, but the script is pretty shaky. Needed tightening up. And the first five minutes employed strange edits, freeze frames, slow motion, and weird jumps. Thankfully, that stopped after the first few minutes. almost turned it off. The only big name I recognized was Edie Falco, from Sopranos and Nurse Jackie. Looks like the director uses her in a bunch of his films. If you like futuristic films which are a little fuzzy, plot wise, and don't mind having many un-answered questions, you'll probably like this one. From Hal Hartley, who has been writing and directing for years. Currently showing on Fandor Channel.

The dialogue is stilted, the acting is just awful, the back story is sketchy---especially frustrating in a film that hangs on its back story---and the "futuristic" props are so cheap as to be comical. The social-scientific concept of the movie sounds rather intriguing when read in summary on Wikipedia, but it's not fleshed out in the film. Worse yet, there's no connection established between that concept and the extra-terrestrial aspects of the story. Overall, this movie lacks a coherent plot, on top of stunningly poor execution. Indeed, the best thing about this film is the titles design. So watch those and move on---don't waste the next 80 minutes of your life.

I would like to suggest to those who comment on this film, of which there are many, that if one is to judge this movie as 'simplistic' or trite, then one has to answer a set of questions raised by the film - 1. What is the relation between embodiment and desire? Hartley raises this beautifully with the presentation of the girl, and intertwines it with the other themes (among many!) that I would like to point out. 2. What is the role of Christianity in this film? The word become flesh, the girl reading a study bible, the interviewer asking Jack if he is religious, and the idea of sacrifice and martyrdom all raise this issue in interesting and provocative ways. (this is especially interesting considering the film's conclusion and the question it raises about the possibility of a messiah in a capitalist context (i.e. where "value" only means monetary value))3. What is the relation between desire and the structures of society? Does desire resist that power structure, or is it rather created by that power structure? The film raises the question of whether or not the resistance that is possible is also "good for business," and suggests that desire is fully malleable by the power structure. BUT, it also opens the possibility for real resistance, without being overly optimistic about this. There are many many other interesting questions raised by this wonderful and thoughtful film, but these are just a few that immediately strike me as central, and which do not seem to play a role in the criticism of the film voiced by many of its detractors. It is important to develop the skill to enjoy many types of film - important insofar as it simply increases pleasure in watching film - and so it is best to be able to ignore problems with the low production value and bad acting and to enjoy it for its strengths, rather than focus on the negative and not enjoy one's time with the film. P.S. Anyone else wondering about the references to Homer's Odyssey in the film? So many questions . . .

In which Hartley continues his exploration of the Godard cookbook. In this case, "Alphaville", with side orders of "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and various Chris Marker 'photoroman' movies.The voice-over is not a cover for the failure to tell the story so much as a yarn-spinning technique along the lines of early Peter Greenaway or late Werner Herzog. There are some striking similarities with Herzog's recent "Wild Blue Yonder" (also billed as a science fiction fantasy).In some ways this seems as much an exercise as an attempt to entertain; as with Godard's work the film is shot on a shoestring, with the present made to stand in for the future - Hartley tries to see how much he can say with how little.Others have commented on the social satire; overlooked may have been the beautiful photography, the dreamlike atmosphere, the air of melancholy and loss, and the very effective music by Hartley himself (no longer trading under his "Ned Rifle" alias).I dare say many of us miss his "early, funny, films" but that's how it goes with New York filmmakers, I guess. Where those movies were snappy prose, this is a poem.