Based on Michel Tournier's novel Vendredi ou le limbes du Pacifique (a reworking of Robinson Crusoe), Friday or Another Day charts the course of the relationship between a proud thespian and a sardonic islander.
From an initial position of colonialism-in-miniature, their friendship matures to something more even-footed as assumptions about race and culture are challenged.
An 18th century Parisian actor of the Comédie Française, Phillippe de Nohan, is shipwrecked on a desert island, in a French twist on the Crusoe story. He finds himself cast ashore with plenty of provisions, a bounty of theatre paraphernalia and his trusty dog, Tenn. In his solitude, he starts to lose his grip on reality. Before he tips over into insanity, he encounters a native islander whom he dubs ‘Friday'.
Beautifully shot in sepia-like tones by veteran cinematographer Danny Elsen, Friday or Another Day draws the viewer into Nohan and Friday's surreal world in which the boundary between the ‘cultured man' and the ‘native' gradually loses meaning.