What
is the psychological effect of being laid off permanently?
Statistics show a high correlation with suicide in many
countries, but Spain has a low suicide rate. Accordingly,
the film Mondays in the Sun (Los lunes al sol), directed
by Fernando León de Aranoa, provides more complex
answers about some 200 dockworkers in Vigo, Galicia, who,
three years earlier, participated in a riot and were later
given a large bonus if they signed a separation agreement.
The owners of the shipyard evidently calculate that they
can make more money by replacing the docks, which have
a fantastic view of Vigo's waterfront and skyline, with
condos for the rich. Rico (played by Joaquin Climent) uses
the money to purchase a bar in the neighborhood of the
docks, hardly a location to attract many customers, so
his principal patrons are laid off dockworkers who drink,
often excessively, and commiserate about their fate together
without paying for their tabs. Reina (played by Enrique
Villen), another laid-off dockworker, is a security guard
at a soccer stadium; he sneaks in his friends for a view,
though they have to crouch in the bleachers to see anything.
Amador (played by Celso Bugallo) drinks so much that he,
in effect, commits suicide, and his death is mourned only
by his fellow inebriates. Sergei, a Russian (played by
Serge Riaboukine), tells a joke or two but otherwise is
calm; he doubtless saw much worse in the Soviet Union,
where he claims to have been training to be a cosmonaut
when the communist system collapsed. Lino (played by José Ángel
Egido) conscientiously applies for jobs, but he is a victim
of age discrimination even after dyeing the gray out of
his hair (but not shaving his thick beard). José Suárez
(played by Luis Tosar) is better off, since his spouse
Ana (played by Nieve de Medina) has a nightly job working
in a tuna cannery. One day, the two apply for a loan at
a bank. However, the loan interviewer places their application
in a hopper different from other applicants, which José interprets
as a clue that the loan will be denied. Then he becomes
indignant, grabs the application and tears it up, provoking
Ana to complain bitterly, and she begins to contemplate
leaving him for her own peace of mind. At the center of
the story is Carlos "Santa" Santamaría
(played by Javier Bardem), whose psychological response
is to throw a rock to destroy a public light, chatter incessantly
in the hopes of finding something amusing to say, flirt
with pretty girls, and loaf with his friends at the bar
or outside near the docks. Although Rico does not want
Santa to flirt with his fifteen-year-old daughter, Natalia
(played by Aída Folch), she is amused by what the
men say at the bar. One night Nata secretly arranges to
subcontract a babysitting job to Santa, paying him 3,000
pesetas (US$15) while keeping 2,000 (US$10) for herself.
When Santa goes to the home of the rich person to take
care of a two-year-old boy, he brings along his friends,
who show resentment that they are cast away while others
enjoy the good life. At bedtime, Santa reads to the boy
a story, "The Grasshopper and the Ant," but he
sees through the symbolism and critiques the moral in almost
Marxist terms for the astonished child. The slow-moving
but engaging Mondays in the Sun, thus, contains tragicomic
humor that is more European than American, more absurdist
than bellylaugh material. When the film ends, Santa has
taken an extreme but amusing form of civil disobedience
that perhaps symbolizes that the unemployed men are in
limbo, living one day at a time without caring which day
it is. As the tagline says, "This film is not based
on a real story. It is based on thousands." MH
I
want to comment on this film
