The Girl From Monday
This is the only science-fiction film by Hartley. Its plot is set in the near future. The main character - Jack Ball works for the Triple M (Multi Media Monopoly) corporation, which takes power in America after the Revolution and introduces a market dictatorship. All citizens are constantly controlled: in the film we can see nameless violent soldiers, who arrest people in the streets. Everybody has a tattoo on his wrist with a bar code, replacing the cash card and allowing access to even the most intimate data about people. The authorities are especially careful in controlling the subjects' sexual life, because higher sexual activity means also higher purchasing and consuming ability and these are the essential factors of human value in this anti-utopia. One day the girl from Monday appears in this future world. She arrives on the Earth from a 147X star of the Monday constellation and she has a special mission to accomplish. Jack gives her shelter in his flat: the beautiful woman has no bar code on her wrist and therefore she could be condemned as an illegal immigrant.
Anna Taszycka
It's two halves. I tought of it more like an old LP. Side one and side two.
Hal Hartley
Hal Hartley was born on November 3, 1959, in Islip, New York. In 1977 he attended the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. He then returned to his hometown of Lindenhurst for a year to earn money for more schooling. His father, as the most of Hartley's family, was an ironworker. Hartley continued ironworking for the summer and fall after his graduation from Purchase in 1984, while making a number of super 8 millimeter films. But he was happy to call it quits when he had earned enough to pay off the debts incurred from making his senior thesis film, Kid.
After a year doing various production assistant jobs - the most fondly remembered of which was as an intern in the art department on Laurie Anderson's Home of the Brave - he settled into a more steady office job with Action Productions - a company producing commercials and public service announcements. Brownstein, the owner of the company would largely finance Hartley's first feature film three years later and the success of that venture led to the formation of True Fiction Pictures, Hartley's own production company which Brownstein managed.
Hartley made a lot of films, very quickly, over the coming years and won the Young Filmmakers Award at the 1994 Tokyo International Film Festival for his film Amateur (1994), which was also premiered at the Cannes Director's Fortnight of that year. Retrospectives of his work have been presented at The Rotterdam Festival in 1992 and Gijon, Spain.
In 1996 he married Japanese actress and dancer, Miho Nikiado, who was one of the leads in his film Flirt (1995). He won the Best screenplay award at Cannes in 1998 for his film Henry Fool. Hartley taught filmmaking at Harvard University from September 2001 till May 2004. Hartley, who has lived in New York City since graduating college in 1984, has recently relocated to Berlin, Germany. He was shooting his newest film, Fay Grim throughout Europe and Southern Asia.
Filmography:
1984 Kid (kr.m.)
1987 The Cartographer's Girlfriend (kr.m.)
1988 Dogs (kr.m.)
1989 Niezwykła prawda / The Unbelievable Truth
1990 Zaufanie / Trust
1991 Teoria sukcesu / Theory of Achievement (kr.m.)
1991 Ambicja / Ambition (kr.m.)
1991 Przetrwać pożadanie / Surviving Desire
1992 Prości faceci / Simple Men
1993 Flirt (kr.m.)
1994 Iris (kr.m.)
1994 NYC 3/94 (kr.m.)
1994 Opera nr 1 / Opera No. 1 (kr.m.)
1994 Amator/ Amateur
1997 Henry Fool
1997 Jeszcze drugi / The Other Also (kr.m.)
1998 Księga życia / The Book of Life
2000 Nowa mat(e)ma(tyka) / The New Math(s) (kr.m.)
2000 Kimono (kr.m.)
2001 Nie ma takiej rzeczy/ No Such Thing
2004 Siostry Miłosierdzia / The Sisters of Mercy (kr.m.)
2005 Dziewczyna z planety Poniedziałek / The Girl from Monday
2006 Fay Grim