Interview with Otar Iosseliani by producer Martine Marignac

- 'I would like to speak about the film, but I don't think that will ever explain the subject, because in that way we leave cinema and pass into the domain of words. If I had to express myself with words, I wouldn't be a filmmaker, but a writer, It's another language. My tongue doesn't obey me well enough to formulate everything that I'd like to say.' FAREWELL, HOME SWEET HOME (Adieu, plancher des vaches) ends with the departure of the father, and MONDAY MORNING begins with the departure of the father. Is MONDAY MORNING a follow-up to FAREWELL, HOME SWEET HOME? - In FAREWELL, the father was trapped in a chateau and he wanted to live another life. MONDAY MORNING is about the monotony of daily life: the factory, going back home from work, lack of friendship, human contact. Vincent is a factory worker and he can't stand this monotonous routine anymore: being a slave to his situation, obligated to getting up every morning and going to his job, which is pretty disgusting since it's at a chemical plant. Back at home in the evenings, he doesn't have relaxing or joyous moments because everyone in his family lives their own life in his absence and he doesn't have much part in it. That's the set-up of the film, but the theme is about going somewhere else to search for the happiness we've been dreaming of. On the other hand, the difference (between FAREWELL and MONDAY MORNING) would be the social dimension of the character of Vincent, who not only feels excluded from his family, but even more so socially. - That's not necessarily the specific situation of that social level. What is unbearable for me is that a human being born in this world has to waste his life working, always doing the same thing, monotonous and meaningless. Rich, poor, big boss or worker, he's obligated to submit to a boring and tiring rhythm. However, the difference between rich and poor is made very clear. It doesn't appear to be insignificant... - One shouldn't take this film literally as a social analysis. I made more of a parable about the unhappiness of solitude. The character of Vincent is alone. His father is alone, his mother is alone. His wife stays alone at home, his children are alone. The friends that Vincent finds in a faraway country are also alone. Except for the few moments when he can have a good time with some pals that then quickly disperse because everyone goes about their own way. MONDAY MORNING is a parable, a look at our solitude... When we talk about 'solidarity' today, it all has a sound of money around it. Not like true solidarity: friendship, sharing, the joy of being someone's friend, living a happy moment with that someone and being happy to be alive. Vincent returns home. There's also the portrait of a family in MONDAY MORNING. Contemporary families, where husband and wife no longer speak to one another, where children don't communicate with their parents. - I've seen reasonably well-off families where the children hate their parents. I've seen modest families where parents and children don't speak to one another. They just don't have the time to communicate with their children. The family is torn apart by this situation. The absence of grown-ups is taken for granted. The parents come home from work tired and go to bed early and start snoring. There's no time for education, nor the transfer of experience. There's nothing to connect these families. Not in one case or the other. Is there a sign of hope for the young people who fly off on the hang-glider? - When people are still young, they imagine this world with the hope of living their life to the fullest and that their life will be happy. In MONDAY MORNING, I present young people who are well-educated and good, but they are completely separated from adults except (as is traditional in all countries) for the contact between grandparents and grandchildren which is tighter than between parents and their children. The grandmother in MONDAY MORNING is more of a friend to her grandson than his own mother and father. She has more free time. She is available. This tradition that exists pretty much everywhere in the world of separating grandparents from their grandchildren by putting them in day care centres, then grade schools, plus working all the time, separates parents from their children. When the home is empty, when there isn't a grandmother or grandfather, the children are at the mercy of television and electronic games The grandmother's tales are gone forever, the grandfather's games have disappeared... The two wives, the rich and the poor, seem to be united through their scarves. What is the significance of their two knitters, these two Penelopes? - I made a comedy about the unhappiness of being obligated to obey the rules of this world... But like all comedies I've tried to make, they're all intertwined with a very serious and very sad layer... Knitting, because the two women have nothing better to do than make something with their hands, mechanically. As a result of their unhappiness, as a result of their pain, as a result of their solitude, a scarf or a sweater or something knitted is brought into the world to become a gift for a loved one. But as soon as it is offered to a loved one, that can take on the aspect of a particular slavery over these men by these women. Symbolically, they are tying the knot around their necks. Really shooting in the countryside, really shooting in Venice, really filming in chemical plants (it just so happens that four or five months after the shoot, the sister plant of the shoot location plant exploded)...How does one go from the hyper-realism of all these elements to a film ending up almost surrealist? - Let's start first with prohibitions. In MONDAY MORNING, there is the most elementary prohibition - it is forbidden to smoke everywhere. This prohibition outrages me. The Europeans went to the Americas and brought back tobacco. They made an industry of tobacco. They made an enormous amount of money. The result is that most of the continents began to smoke like locomotives. Then all of a sudden: Stop, Smoking is Forbidden. All while continuing to make money. That's revolting. Especially when you think about that it's the USA that supplies us with different types of Marlboro. It's the country that has the network of factories that don't stop supplying us with cigarettes. And it's the country where it's forbidden to smoke in restaurants... Everything that happens in MONDAY MORNING is real. Obviously the chemical plant resembles reality. But we created our own version of a chemical plant, full of multicoloured gases, full of sounds which don't exist. We made a hyperbole...In the same way, for the village, to bring alive a calm and quiet family, we gave two extremely gifted and clever children who are full of fantasy. And this little world, unaware of what's coming , takes flight with their dreams, their fantasy and their invention toward something which obviously won't exist when they will become adults. One of the children creates frescoes. The other one is insolent. He sings well, he plays the piano... MONDAY MORNING is also a film about exile... - It's a film about the impossibility of exile. If we hope to find happiness somewhere else, well, that's false. Our character Vincent is intelligent and observant enough to conclude that it's better to go back home, because there isn't any other solution. The world is the same everyhere..."Dust to dust." Is the family home like an antechamber of death? - Yes. Except... Sailors. When they wanted to curse someone, they said 'You'll die in bed.' Because sailors were the type of people who thought it was better to go down with the ship and drown in a storm than to die in bed. So you feel more like a sailor? - For the moment, yes. But later, I don't know. For the sequences which are absolutely not realistic, but which have, at the same time, a significance in the film... The enigmatic character of Vincent's childhood friend who becomes the transvestite bathroom attendant, what does their reunion mean for you? - Vincent is not just a factory worker. He also dabbles in painting. He obviously has a past that he was obligated to forget, to deny, when he married, when he started a family. He stumbles on a friend from another time of his life. An unhappy friend in an extreme situation. He lives alone in a basement and his only friends are two rats. He's obligated to disguise himself as a woman to make a living, although he too is a painter. They both have childhood memories. They are true long lost friends. They probably dreamed about painting together. Why Venice? - The idea was to send Vincent to a faraway country. But faraway countries, we've seen them already. If there's a strange and not-so-faraway place, then it's Venice. It's semi-reality, semi-fantastic. We found a setting not too postcard-like with water and boats, where people live on water, where people move around on water. Where water is constantly present. Venice itself is a character. When you fill this Venice with something warm, simple and normal, you erase the traditional decor and you have the right to concentrate on the destiny and the life of the human beings which live there. But the charm is there. When we get off the train and find ourselves on the bank of the Grand Canal, we're dazzled by the beauty of the buildings and by the strangeness of the way of moving around. For a filmmaker, shooting in Venice is a pleasure. A travelling shot on a boat would never have the same rhythm as one on a car... The sounds recorded are also very particular. Instead of the rumbling of cars, like in all cities, we hear the humming of boat motors mixed with the singing or accordions and guitars.

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