"A Perfect Day", directed in tandem by Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas (both fluent speakers of French), is an Arabic language film set in contemporary Beirut which deals with a missing person, in this case a man who was kidnapped and never heard from again -- one of some 17,000 such cases during the Lebanese civil war of the eighties. Basically this is a two person show, the son of the missing man and his mother, and the big question facing them is whether or not to have the missing father/husband declared legally dead so as to be able to resume life anew, or to continue 'waiting for Godot'... As part of his denial syndrome the son develops a case of narcolepsy, which is a tendency to fall asleep unpredictably at any moment, even at the wheel of his car in the middle of a traffic jam. While interesting for the view afforded of contemporary Beirut once known as"The Paris of the Middle-East", the film itself is so narcoleptic that it is likely to put viewers to sleep within the first half hour.

I saw A Perfect Day at BAFTA as part of the ARAB CINEMA weekend followed by Q&A by the director.The film follows Malek on the day he and his mother finally sign the papers which officially label his father as dead. He had disappeared 15 years earlier as many others had during the war.We follow Malek through the streets of Beirut as he is more eager to get back with his girlfriend who for some reason has left him. Along the way the director portrays Beirut with constant use of contrasts of modern and traditional, old and new. The discussions of mother and son about their dead father is interrupted by a silly mobile phone ring tone, we see brand new posters on old crumbling walls, and Pepsi ads on old rusty vans in the streets of Beirut.The main theme of time and space is effectively used to develop the characters, people being trapped in spaces where time seems to have stood still with the constant interruptions of the world outside. My main problem with the film was perhaps how these contrasts were created. Apart from the use of objects such as phones and cars, women were used as objects to illustrate the modernization. A scene of a beautiful woman singing on TV, the disco shot panning through all the women from waist down with and many other examples. In fact apart from the mother all women, with colorful hijabs, or with their glowing hair, are seen as objects and not subjects of the modernization process of Beirut.This is a shame as the film is otherwise highly engaging.