Mondays: See You 'This' Week!

Akemi works at an advertising agency. The work is heavy, the hours long and everyone is tired. One day she notices: the same week is repeating. Monday begins, Friday ends, and Monday begins again. Nobody else has noticed. She convinces two colleagues first, then the three of them convince the rest. In the end the whole office accepts it. They find a rule for getting out: they must find the event that started the loop and put it right. But nobody in the office keeps the memory of the week for the same length of time, and each repetition runs differently from the last. Ryo Takebayashi directs. It is a Japanese production. The film was made on a low budget and takes place almost entirely on one office floor. The humour is built on repetition; the same scene is shown many times and a small detail changes each time. The time loop plot is familiar and the difference here is scale; the narrative puts not one person but a whole team in the loop and a division of labour is set up. The matter underneath is working culture; the argument over long hours in Japan sits inside the narrative. The teamwork scenes are its best sections and the comedy comes largely from the difficulty of coordination. Its limit is length; the method of repetition tires past a point and the ending slides into an emotional register. It was shown at festivals and drew attention among independent Japanese comedies. Who it is for: viewers who like time loop plots and office comedy. Who it is not for: the repetition is tiring, the budget shows, and there are many characters.