Ponedjeljak ili utorak

A typical day in a life may be described as banal and characterized by routine – waking up, getting ready for work, watching television and go to sleep. That, however, would be a purely superficial view of one very intricate and complex being. Behind the appearances, easily perceived and tangible, flourishes an emotional, intellectual and spiritual world.

This is the theme that Vatroslav Mimica elaborated successfully in its experimental film portraying the stream of consciousness entitled Monday or Tuesday. An ordinary day of the main character is translated into complexity created by the interweaving of visible and invisible aspects of his life. It is not a work with a hardly understandable formula – a hardly understandable experiment, on the contrary, its uncommon form of narrative creates in this case a very intriguing work giving the viewer an easy insight into the reality more real than that superficially seen.

The elements of animation and an artistic camera bring very impressive dreamlike images. It may be said, in fact, that the introductory scenes of the film also represent its most successful part. The cast of actors comprised a number of the then well established Yugoslav actors (Pavle Vuisic, Jagoda Kaloper, Fabijan Šovagovic), Slobodan Dimitrijevic; successfully played the role of a worried intellectual, who reminds to some character from some Krleža's or Sartre's novels. Apart from the novelties introduced and its praiseworthy experimental character, the film also has a documentary value in the representation of the way of life in Zagreb in the 1960s. Somewhat exaggerated pathetic and stereotyping in the elaboration of love thematic does not harm the film as whole.

I warmly recommend this film because of its attempt to unite a complex human activity comprising aspects not identifiable in the material sphere.