Los lunes al sol (Mondays in the Sun) 2002 Spain (109
minutes) directed and co-written by Fernando León de Aranoa.
Javier Bardem is former welder
Carlos ‘Santa’ Santamaria, a first among equals who leads this fine ensemble
piece about a group of out-of-work, middle-aged shipyard workers in a town on
Spain’s Atlantic coast.
As an actor, Bardem has the virile
magnetism and intensity of Marlon Brando that makes both actors fascinating to
watch, but Bardem also conveys a rich and warm sense of humor that charms
men and women alike. As Santa, he is the heart of this group of men, their
pride. He is the fresh rascal they love and would love to be, as ready with an
amusing quip or cock-and-bull story as he is to listen when one of them needs
to talk.
At the same time, Santa is as
uncertain and uneasy as his friends.
‘Mondays in the sun’ are weekday
mornings of unemployment passed outdoors by these men skilled in trades who
once defined themselves and measured their lives by the work they did. One of
the men compares the group to Siamese twins: ‘We’re stuck together. If one
falls, we all fall. If one of us gets it in the ass, well, that’s it, so do the
others. Because we’re the same thing.’
Santa also is angry. One of the
only things he has to show for all the heart he gave first to his work, then to
try to save his and his coworkers’ jobs, is an 8,000-peseta judgment against
him for admitting that he destroyed a streetlight during a demonstration outside
the shipyard. Santa’s inability to resolve this matter makes no sense to his
lawyer and less to the court because it is less than $100, but it is money he
does not have—and in truth he has no intention of paying it, on principle.
The film opens with actual footage
that director Fernando León de Aranoa shot of a violent confrontation between
police and shipyard workers threatened with layoffs at a shipyard in Spain’s northeastern
most province Galicia. The story begins several years after the shipyard has closed
its doors for good, with an instrumental version of Tom Waits’ ‘On the
Otherside of the World’ as its theme.
With no real job prospects for
skilled senior heavy industrial workers, Santa and his former coworkers:
Paulino ‘Lino’ Ribas (José Ángel Egido), José Suarez (Luis Tosar), Amador
(Celson Bugallo) and Reina (Enrique Villén), hang out at the Bar La Naval owned
by Rico (Joaquín Climent). Rico, also a former shipyard worker, bought the bar
with his severance pay. Occasionally they go through the motions of looking for
gainful employment. A seventh man, Serguei (Serge Riaboukine), a Russian
émigré, is another regular, along with Natalia ‘Nata’ (Aida Folch), bar owner
Rico’s 15-year-old daughter, who absorbs what the men say and listens with amusement
to their backchat while she does her homework.
The men share an easy intimacy
as though they have known each other all their lives. This ensemble of
actors also manages convincingly to convey each of
these lifelong breadwinners facing extended joblessness and uncertainty
under ongoing financial pressure.
Lino, with two teenagers and a
disillusioned housewife at home, serially waits to interview for jobs among
younger men whom he is sure are more likely to be hired than he. José drinks
too much and plays the daily lottery by picking numbers which appear at random
in his surroundings; his beautiful but haggard wife Ana (Nieve de Medina) works
a low-paying graveyard shift on a production line at a fish cannery. Amador
spends most of the time at his corner spot at Rico’s bar, telling his friends
that his wife is out of town caring for her ill mother.
The shipyard itself is a character:
a silent, brooding presence with an unfinished sea-going hull left abandoned
and its machinery and equipment divided into lots for auction, guarded by its
last employee, a halfwit with a German shepherd. Santa tells the others that
the excavators at work in the background are a sure sign that the lot, ‘worth a
fortune because it is on the sea,’ is being converted to luxury apartments. The
unfinished hull and ‘repurposing’ of the yard speak for the loss of dignity
these men feel in unemployment that is more than just a loss of income or their
manhood.
Reina, the only man besides Rico
with a full time job, is a ‘técnico de seguridad’, or ‘security technician’—a
fancy name for a rent-a-cop—at the local professional football stadium.
The men most often appear engaged
in group activities. Reina lets them into the stadium for football games which
they watch from the roof, though an overhang blocks their view of one of the
goals: they lean together on a bench in rapt animation when the players
disappear from view, waiting for the crowd to cheer ‘GOAL!’ to celebrate.
Nata gives Santa one of her
babysitting jobs so she can go on a date on a school night—and because he needs
the money. Santa, Lino, José and Serguei hang out at the luxurious house
shooting the breeze and drinking the owner’s good scotch on the back patio
while the four-year-old whom Nata was supposed to babysit contentedly watches
television inside.
The friends also ride the ferry
that takes them to the unemployment office, and regularly visit the
unemployment office together.
A woman in the unemployment office
waves to Santa standing in line and he nods and smiles back; his friends
express surprise that she recognizes him. He tells them he saw her at his last
visit, then quickly mumbles: ‘Ya que no nos consiguen trabajo, al menos que nos
chupen la polla, joder,’ which the English subtitle renders in the same sense
and spirit: ‘If they can’t give us a decent job, we’ll take a blow job.’
Santa’s bravado amuses his friends
and hides what they really feel, which we see when Lino gets closer to where
the unemployed are interviewed.
Lino sees a middle-aged man, Samuel
(Pepe Oliva, who appears only in this scene), tell an official that he can’t
receive benefits until he provides a proof of discharge, which he does not
have. Samuel’s voice breaks when he asks the official please to call his wife
and explain this to her, and when the official declines, he breaks down into
tears: ‘Tell her and see if she understands,’ he pleads.
There are moving and also amusing
vignettes. This film tells a tale that makes it well worth seeing, and we get
to know and like each of these characters. The quality of the acting is such
that the characters’ gestures and facial expressions are often more eloquent
than their words, and convey things for which they cannot find words.
What makes the story of these six
men and their families and friendships poignant is the sense that there are
unique cultures among those who make a living in skilled trades and professions.
When these trades and professions
are gone, these cultures disappear too and society loses something important
and essential. It is not simply a matter of ‘retraining,’ ‘repurposing,’ or
just providing people gainful employment in another job to pay their
bills.
