In spite of its short runtime and limited resources, Alfred Giancarli’s Weeknights (2023) taps into a rich well of cinematic influences—James Benning’s landscape films and Tsai Ming-liang’s urban malaise, to name just two. Standing apart from these legacies is no small task, but Giancarli’s attentiveness to the rhythms of his characters’ lives, and his understanding of the way invisible labor organizes the rhythm of an entire city, ensures Weeknights stands on its own.
But to focus on efficiency, even (and perhaps especially) in a film about invisible forms of labor, misses the point. Julian, a security guard with whom we spend the majority of the film; Marat, a bodega worker; and Huston, a rideshare driver, color inside the rough outlines sketched out by Giancarli’s static camera and ambient sound design. The result is a film that resists the temptation to humanize its characters from the outside or define them by their work alone, and instead allows each of the men to exist for themselves.
In one simple set-up, shot from behind, Marat presses a wet towel against the back of his neck, a private ritual to prepare him for the nighttime public. Huston livens the monotony of his work by programming his GPS with a funny voice. We don’t know the medical reason Julian has to wear a foot brace at the end of his work day, but we don’t have to. We wince as he tightens the straps around his ankle and yanks upwards towards his knee. There’s as much fanfare to the action as brushing one’s teeth, but crucially, of all the nighttime rituals we perform, Giancarli makes us watch this one.
Less than a third of the way into the film, Julian fills his thermos with coffee at a bodega—an anonymous checkpoint in his nightly routine turns that into something more when Marat appears behind the counter. In a film as low-key and subdued as Weeknights, this simple meeting carries an unexpected charge. The nature of their work fosters isolation, so for the next several minutes, their nearly wordless communion has a loving quality, and suggests a shared understanding, the result, perhaps, of a history built up in the rare, minutes-long chunks during which they can simply be.
Weeknights screens tonight, December 17, and throughout the week at Spectacle Theater. Director Alfred Giancarli will be in attendance for Q&As until December 22.
