Thursday, June 19, 2008

Complete Cycles of One Day

Author(s): Sergio
Location: Spain

"Complete Cycles of One Day"

Directed by Atom Egoyam
Written and Produced by Allan Ball
Music by Mychael Danna
Cinematography by Paul Sarossy

Main Cast

Gaspard Ulliel as Daniel
Sarah Polley as Camille
Elaine Cassidy as Erika
Max Minghella as Adrian
Elias Koteas as Officer Jonas Garner
Rachel Griffiths as Madeleine Garner
Arsineé Khanjian as Daniel’s mother

Tagline: "It’s impossible to understand an unknown feeling"

Synopsis: Four young strangers are found dead in an old cabin in Lake Cood, a small and quiet town where nothing happens. Police’s first theory was the accident, because the four were lying on their beds, without signs of violence but with signs of asphyxiation produced by four kerosene stoves. But something change completely the investigation when Officer Garner finds one of the corpses chained to the bed with handcuffs. Garner will try to research all the clues but the strangers don’t have an ID and they are not from the area. FBI looks for a nexus between them but is almost impossible. Finally, all the corpses are claimed except one, they can’t find any member of Daniel’s family. When the parents arrive to the town they are interrogated but apparently the four have nothing in common, they came from different places, from very different circles, but with a similar profile, according to the psychologist report. The media treat this case as another fanatic group, members of a sect but FBI considers all this as an unusual case of collective suicide. But, why do they choose this small town? All the villagers are very affected. There are not many young people in the town and they can’t understand the reasons for a suicide. The winter trade is suspended and the major declares a week of official mourning.

The day before, four strangers arrived by car. Camille has rent an old cabin besides the iced lake. They do a normal life, going shopping, walking and having long conversations. They are no friends, they don’t know much about the others but they talk about almost everything and they spend a great day together. Adrian has just finished his studies in physics and astronomy and he realized, long time ago, about his own insignificant existence in the vast universe. Erika has been suffering all her life and she can’t remember the last time she laughed. Camille fights the reality through her camera, she has a strange illness and she can’t retain people’s faces in her mind so she can’t recognize the face of the people she loves or hates. Daniel, introvert and silent, has a permanent trauma that prevents him to enjoy in any situation.

The morning after, Garner finds the final clue to resolve the case. He finds a notebook where Daniel describes his last day. Garner finds a reference to a web site called “complete cycles of one day”, where a group of people, including Camille, Erika and Adrian, talks about their day by day, their unliked life, and their heavy monotony. It is a collective diary started as a place to share vain experiences. Daniel created the site when he started to transcribe all his notebooks and diaries, when he felt the necessity to share all his vain thoughts. Jonas Garner reads the complete days of all of them and he starts making himself questions he has never thought before, changing his way to see the life and affecting to the relation with his wife Madeleine, family and friends.

The last night, Daniel leaves his notebook in Garner’s mailbox. He feels curiosity and an unusual illusion about meeting Jonas Garner, his father. But it is too late and he is in the point of not return, so he comes back with the others and he decides to chain himself to the bed, because he has doubts about his important decision.

Daniel is seven years old and his homework for the weekend is to do a narration describing a complete day in his life. On Friday evening he prepares all for the next day, it has to be perfect. He will wake up early to make the breakfast and to watch TV. Then he will go to the zoo with his mother. He feels a great illusion but when he carries the breakfast to bed he discovers his mother’s corpse with an empty bottle of pills, turning the day in the worst of all his life.

What the Press would say:

Like a bittersweet poem about the sense of life, a delicate screenplay arises connected and polished with great mastery by Alan Ball. - It’s about the important questions of the life, that’s all. The questions that we don’t dare to make in loud voice. Everyone thinks about if there is any sense in our day by day and the answer is in the wind – Allan ball says.

Many people have accused this screenplay of being too melodramatic, pessimist and encouraging to the suicide but that is not true. The film never justify their decision and never judge them, it just accompanies along the internal trip. – That is not what we pretend. We don’t judge the fact instead, we show and undercover a reality - Atom Egoyan says. Egoyan doesn’t want this film to be a melodramatic mushy cliché, full of morality, about four misunderstood teenagers and their unreal problems. He directed the actors as if they really love life over everything, as if they love every single moment and act they do. That creates a great confusion in the observer because we already know that they are going to suicide. The spectator doesn’t understand the real motivations about why they decide to die but that is what the writer and the director pretends. – We can’t understand them because it would be like to simplify their entire lives. Egoyan wanted an atmospheric film, full of tension and covered emotions.

The story is developed in three different times and all the cast support the charge of the film but at the end of the edition process they realized about the great potential and emotional powerful scenes of some of the actors. This is the case of Elias Koteas – He is a simple man that has never thought about the transcendental questions that the four strangers make in their binnacles. He starts asking for the meaning of life and he suffers an existential crisis that will affect to his marriage and the rest of his relations. Rachel Griffiths character suffers the transformation of her husband and she can’t understand him. She has a quiet life, with two little girls… She has everything she was supposed to, and she is what she wanted to be, but her life starts to crash. The four young actors got a great complicity and they transmit the importance of their decision. Gaspard Ulliel was the last one to get in the cast and the director wasn’t convinced to cast him. But he made a great proof with Sarah Polley and he got the paper easily, he was Daniel. Sarah Polley is the soul of the film, its eyes and through her illness we understand her impossibility to transmit all she has inside. She is a great actress even without speaking and both actors make a heartbreaking performance.

FYC:

Best Picture
Best Director: Atom Egoyan
Best Original Screenplay: Allan Ball
Best Leading Actor: Gaspar Ulliel
Best Supporting Actress: Sarah Polley
Best Supporting Actor: Elias Koteas
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Griffiths

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