Just finished watching Day Night Day Night, if you can call what I did watching. I hadn’t the slightest clue what this film was going to be about. I remember starting to pay attention at the appearance of a tennis racket, which the lead character, a nameless 19-year-old girl, is as quick to part with forever as she is to hold on for the same duration.
The remaining ninety minutes weren’t nearly as captivating as the brief cameo of that racket, but that’s just because I like tennis, and I thought the movie was going to be about a Spartan tennis player, someone who traveled with only their racket and heart.
Their loss.
My first protracted blink occurred after they outfitted the nameless female with a yellow school bag packed to the zipper with nails and explosives. They taught her how to detonate the contents, and she proved to them that she understood by pressing the PLAY button each time they asked.
It was sometime during this scene that I closed my eyes.
I couldn’t believe that now, at what was very close to the climax of the movie, after no less than sixty minutes of tedious viewing, I was going to take a catnap. I watched this nameless heroine obsessively soap every inch of her body, trim her TOE nails and finger nails, brush her teeth, clean her stockings and socks.
But by far my worst punishment as a viewer was having to listen to the random phone calls to her cel from one of the three masked men. An abrasive ringtone, the kind that quickens.
It wasn’t until she was standing at the crosswalk in Times Square that I came to. This was the moment of truth: Was she capable of pressing PLAY, of giving fatal impetus to thousands of sharp nails after ripping apart the air around her?
In disbelief, I let my eyes shut, completely indifferent to the outcome. When I opened them again the nameless heroine was in a bathroom stall using toilet tissue to tamp the urine that she wet herself with.
That’s when I fell asleep for good. Passing out in the middle of a movie is the best. The chance to let go, to not give a shit, to be irresponsible and reckless, to admit to yourself that you know the consequences of falling asleep and fully accept them. You’ve made a decision, to pass out, and you will remain unwavering in executing this decision.
Would I recommend Day Night Day Night? Well, it all depends on what you want to get out of your movie experience. Me? I’m watching it tomorrow night, too.
