Rosales' odd film could mean anything or it could mean nothing. It could be the ultra-clinical study of a sociopath - and there are clues throughout that Abel is utterly unable to empathise with anyone. But then not every sociopath is a random killer, and vice versa.
The mundane conversations that make up 95% of the film could hint at something greater, or they could just be... well, mundane, as 95% of real life is.
My only interpretation is that Abel's first victim (a woman) represents, to him, all the strong females in his life with whom he's invariably weak and feckless. The second, the old man at the train station, represents Abel himself. He overhears the man's daughter lamenting him for 'never doing anything any more' and 'wanting her old dad back' - very similar comments to those that Abel's girlfriend makes before they split up. Thus Abel, in killing the man, is ultimately trying to purge his own pathetic existence.
But all this is semi-philosophical film-school analysis, and Hours of the Day simply resists it. It's a tough film to get through not for its brief bouts of shocking (yet equally clinical) violence, but its total banality. And whether it's actually any good is the toughest question of all.
The mundane conversations that make up 95% of the film could hint at something greater, or they could just be... well, mundane, as 95% of real life is.
My only interpretation is that Abel's first victim (a woman) represents, to him, all the strong females in his life with whom he's invariably weak and feckless. The second, the old man at the train station, represents Abel himself. He overhears the man's daughter lamenting him for 'never doing anything any more' and 'wanting her old dad back' - very similar comments to those that Abel's girlfriend makes before they split up. Thus Abel, in killing the man, is ultimately trying to purge his own pathetic existence.
But all this is semi-philosophical film-school analysis, and Hours of the Day simply resists it. It's a tough film to get through not for its brief bouts of shocking (yet equally clinical) violence, but its total banality. And whether it's actually any good is the toughest question of all.