People on Sunday is filmed using the technology of hand-crancked cinematograph camera invented by the Lumière brothers’. The instability and volatility of the image produced by the filming technique characterizes Viita´s film which title refers to the German classic Menchen am Sonntag (1930) – a well-known example of how history and the passage of time affect the interpretation of film. The inexorable passage of time and the beautiful fragility of life are central themes in both films. Does man learn anything from history, or are we doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again? People on Sunday presents ten cinematic portraits. The passage of time is at the heart of the film where human time and natural time are juxtaposed. Natural processes can be quite slow, and human life is a mere blink of an eye in this perspective.
