In his film ‘Monkey’s Birthday’ (1975) David Larcher used diaristic footage as a basis for a long, highly romantic mediation on light and color that was substantially structured through re-photography (optical-printing). Besides being based around the LFMC, most of these artists shared a common preoccupation with the material qualities of film and with the nature of illusion, duration, and the structuring of experience.
The film revolves around the manin protagonist Meenakshi (K. R. Vijaya), who rises from an ordinary housewife to become a Mayor and the trials and tribulations she face to maintain a balance at work and at home.
Letter carrier Eva is in her late twenties, unmarried and the mother of a twelve-year-old son. She falls in love with Jon, a bargeman who is unfortunately already engaged.
Lola Reyes is a singer who is succeeding and, therefore, is besieged by everyone. A group of homosexuals are the only ones authorized by his possessive mother to be her friends.
Cornélio, an aged man and famous baritone, marries the young Angelica, who plans with her ex-boyfriend Bruno, to kill the husband with contaminated oysters, but she ends up the one who gets sick.
Adaptation of a Strindberg play by Lee Grant for the 1974 AFI Directing Workshop for Women. Restored in 2022 by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation.
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Have you watched Monkey’s Birthday yet? What did you think about it?
