The Hours Of The Day

Really liked this film; directed by Jaime Rosales, released in 2003
The opening shot sets the whole thing up. A wonderfully still face, one can’t take the eyes off. Down to the physical features, and the quality of the acting. Throughout, the actors do an excellent, excellent job. Very relaxed, with realism but no emotions shewn whatsoever (or at least minimal). The characters are constantly doing something else from what the subject is, constantly distracted. Cooking, working, even looking out the window. Captured in everyday life. Even when they are not moving, there’s no ‘stand and deliver’ here.
From the opening shot that fascinates, the film basically plays out as banal conversations, with two incidents, filmed in a blank manner, standing out. The shot/reverse schema seems to isolate the two halfves of the conversation, showing the neutral boredom of how they communicate. The barrage of this neutrality comes to seem almost threatening; as what is the everyday is twisted is they come to control each other, demand from each other.
The other framing is the long shot (this film has hardly any medium shots; generally either profile or at least plan americain), which, except for a little panning, remains still. Similar to a number of recent films, it works to enhance a mundane coldness. Again marks out neutrality, but is not formalistic due to its place as one of many, rather than the sole shot. This film is really a focus on the content far more than the form; but that doesn’t mean form is ignored.
It basically does come down to the acting, that keeps us riveted, and a smart script which is at once useless and contains in it the hints of all we need. The opening shot, again, draws us into a space where the lead intrigues; evil? To be pitied? Trying to be good (the ritualistic aspect, the victims are those who, like him, can’t survive and are being ‘delivered’... or is it just opportunism?). Subtly the domination of society, a conformity among the seeming multitudes; in contrast to ‘The Bothersome Man’, gains so much richness but having this among a world of interiors, quite gloomy apartments, and quite clean shops.
The shots, stills, in and out, at the first and last at once place it in a larger milleu, and recognise how we have been drawn so far in. Among the banalities, the non-sequiters, the calm meals and conversations where even the emotional pitches seem flat, we have an extremely strong picture of a world of distractions, restlessness, alienation, distance, hope, violence, flesh. A fine film.