The film opens with a group of demolition workers, in color, blowing up a brick wall that has apparently hidden a black-and-white medieval town. Therein dwells a large, white-clad Christian population and a smaller but equally vigorous Jewish community, both groups living together in adjudicated harmony, though the threat of plague lingers on the horizon.
A young Jewish girl (Toby Newman) forms the center of Monk's interests, though these expand to include her family (Pablo Vela, Lanny Harrison, Daniel Ira Sverdlik) and various local notables, including a doctor (Lucas Hoving), a monk (Greger Hansen), a soldier (Robert Een) and the local madwoman (Monk), who helps the girl interpret visions of the future.
Monk's investigations take the form of ersatz man-in-the-street interviews, in which the characters answer questions as if they were posed by contemporary newspeople, with the answers designed to explore the connections and chasms between the past and the present; thus the doctor is asked both about the power of prayer and whether he knows what a virus is. This anachronistic interview format, if not the exact shape of the questions, is borrowed from Peter Watkins' monumental 1976 feature, ''Edvard Munch.''
Eventually the comity of the town is rent asunder by the arrival of the plague, which leads the Christians to conduct a scapegoating pogrom.
Although the interview segments, despite their derivativeness, have a naive appeal, the only original part of the film involves a performance of traveling players that has, as might be expected, a constrained kineticism. Otherwise, Monk's parallels are both too crude and too artsy to bear much scrutiny.
BOOK OF DAYS
The Stutz Co.
Producers Catherine Tage, Dominique Lasseur
Director-music Meredith Monk
Camera Jerry Pantzer
Art direction-costume design Yoshio Yabara
Editor Girish Bhargava
Dramaturge Tone Blevins
Production design Jean Vincent Puzos
Color/black and white
Cast:
Young girl Toby Newman
Her grandfather Pablo Vela
Her mother Lanny Harrison
Running time -- 75 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
A young Jewish girl (Toby Newman) forms the center of Monk's interests, though these expand to include her family (Pablo Vela, Lanny Harrison, Daniel Ira Sverdlik) and various local notables, including a doctor (Lucas Hoving), a monk (Greger Hansen), a soldier (Robert Een) and the local madwoman (Monk), who helps the girl interpret visions of the future.
Monk's investigations take the form of ersatz man-in-the-street interviews, in which the characters answer questions as if they were posed by contemporary newspeople, with the answers designed to explore the connections and chasms between the past and the present; thus the doctor is asked both about the power of prayer and whether he knows what a virus is. This anachronistic interview format, if not the exact shape of the questions, is borrowed from Peter Watkins' monumental 1976 feature, ''Edvard Munch.''
Eventually the comity of the town is rent asunder by the arrival of the plague, which leads the Christians to conduct a scapegoating pogrom.
Although the interview segments, despite their derivativeness, have a naive appeal, the only original part of the film involves a performance of traveling players that has, as might be expected, a constrained kineticism. Otherwise, Monk's parallels are both too crude and too artsy to bear much scrutiny.
BOOK OF DAYS
The Stutz Co.
Producers Catherine Tage, Dominique Lasseur
Director-music Meredith Monk
Camera Jerry Pantzer
Art direction-costume design Yoshio Yabara
Editor Girish Bhargava
Dramaturge Tone Blevins
Production design Jean Vincent Puzos
Color/black and white
Cast:
Young girl Toby Newman
Her grandfather Pablo Vela
Her mother Lanny Harrison
Running time -- 75 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 7/17/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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