Review LXXVII - Harold and Maude

Review LXXVII
Harold and Maude (1971)

I always feel like I should stay away from older films that are popular because I'm sure everyone has already said all that needs to be said about the film. But I have to realise that newer generations (and even older generations) may have heard of these films but never taken the time to sit down and watch them. Thus, even though everyone has said what they wanted about the film, the folks that haven't seen the film might sit down and read, well, this, and thus decide to pick it up. Or maybe you'd like to read what I have to say. Or, the most likely scenario, I'm just writing for my own enjoyment. As a result, I'm here to review Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude starring Ruth Gordon (who played the catty neighbour in Rosemary's Baby! What! ... I didn't like that film, by the way), Bud Cort (he plays an important character in Dogma, but doesn't speak. Still, cool!), and Vivian Pickles (! ... I have nothing to say about this woman.).

The film begins with a death... Nearly. A young man steps up on a chair and proceeds to hang himself. His mother (Pickles) walks into the room and promptly ignores her son, only to call out on his ricidulousness and instructing him how to behave. Meet Harold (Cort), our protagonist for the film! Besides being rich, Harold is obsessively morbid, stagging suicides frequently, with a score of approximately fifteen times (it's a rough estimate) thus far, attending funerals for individuals he does not know, and harvesting a knowledge of death-related paraphernalia. He encounters an older woman, Maude (Gordon), at one of the funerals he attends, and the two grow very close. While his mother tries to close him in even further, he finally begins to feel freedom with his unlikely partner.

The black comedy did not do well initially, but it eventually developed a cult following and is now considered a classic (or so Wikipedia tells me, hehe). Does it deserve such a status? Heck yes! I enjoyed the characters' personalities (and Bud Cort's voice - it was beautiful) and I enjoyed the relationship they held. I mean, while they seem contrasting, I never really got the sense they were completely contrasting. Harold might have seemed secluded and seemingly prefer his own company, but as soon as he meets Maude, he opens up. Instead, I really got the feeling he was finally able to blossom once he met the woman he wanted in his life. She finally accepted him for who he was and provided unconditional love and so he was able to grow. Anyway, yes, I liked the characters themselves. Harold was interesting - quirky, but cute. Maude was also interesting - insane, but wonderful. But we actually get a story behind their lives, so their actions all seem so justified at the end. Plus, and this is a slight spoiler I suppose so avoid the rest of the paragraph, we can also take their behaviours as a result of the wars they endured - Maude having endured World War II, a war that brought about a baby boom and a will to live, and Harold having endured the Vietnamese War, a meaningless war. The writer and director of this film knew what they were thinking!

The aesthetics of the film were great, too. There were certain scenes that were really eye-capturing, and the way some scenes were shot were fabulous. Plus the sensualism in that statue scene - oh my. I really don't want to say anything to spoil the film, but check the way the characters are positioned in some scenes - it provides a huge foreshadow for the film. Isn't it nice when the director incorporates such elements into the film? Very nice indeed. Plus that broken-fourth-wall moment? Fabulous. I seem to really like these moments in cinema - probably because they're rarely executed. I also really enjoyed the soundtrack for the film. It's principally Cat Stevens, but man, I thoroughly enjoyed some songs.

I have class tomorrow, so I'll cut the review here. It is well executed and an unconventional romance. It took me a little while to buy into the film, but when I did, I really enjoyed it. If you enjoy black comedies, it's definitely worth a shot. If you're looking for a slightly screwy film, definitely check it out. Harold and Maude shouldn't disappoint.

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Review LXXVI - Funny Games

Review LXXVI
Funny Games (1997)

I'm sorry I vanished for so long, guys. I don't have an excuse given that I have been watching films, but I'm sure you all understand the feeling of not being in the mood to sit down and write something lengthy. However, now that I have a catchy song to listen to on loop (I'd link, but really, it's pretty odd - let's just say it's about shoes), I'm ready to sit down and write! I'm picking out a film I watched quite a while back, but it might be fun to review it. It's a film from Michael Haneke and stars Susanne Lothar, the wonderful Ulrich Mühe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering, and Stefan Clapczynski. There was a frame-by-frame remake, but I stuck with the original. The film? Funny Games.

The film starts off with some blaring Naked City (whose genre, among many things, is noise) as we see a happy family consisting of Georg (Mühe), Anna (Lothar), and Georgie (Clapczynski) driving to a cottage near a lake in Austria. They meet two young men - Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering) - who initially seem friendly, but quickly overstay their welcome. Now the family is trapped in a game they can't escape.

Funny Games is an interesting piece. I didn't look into the film very much before watching it, so when my boyfriend and I watched it, he was often yelling out all the possible weapons the family could have used to attack and kill Paul and Peter. Of course, being the ignorant (and naive) one, I just kept thinking that they were in shock and I assumed that eventually everything would work out. Well, I can't talk about the ending because that would be giving away everything, but I can talk about the meaning of the film. Violence is common in cinema, or, at the very least, in Hollywood, and Michael Haneke was ready to portray this uber-violent nature in his film Funny Games. In this case we'll narrow it to suspense/horror films. This movie goes out of its way to break all the stock ideas that are recycled in every one of these films. I'll only talk about one so as not to ruin the film completely, but yeah, be warned, it is a spoiler. For example, horror films will keep one protagonist we liked (though I despised the one survivor in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Completely useless), but this film completely throws that out of the window. I won't say in what way, but you can already guess.

The primary antagonist, Paul, also constantly breaks the fourth wall and challenges the audience. I'd say the first moment that happens was the biggest up for me in the film. The way it was executed was just so well done, and so were the rest of them. He challenges you, asking if you bet the family will survive to the end. It's different, and I thought it was pretty cool. But as for the film itself, it's just a one-sided battle the whole way through, so it gets a bit tiresome. I mean, you're rooting for the family, but when all you get is them crying and being beaten down, the film starts to get long. You get these moments when you think maybe things will change, but no, it's static the whole way through. Those moments are not enough to really pick up the film, but some of them - including the one with Anna and the gun - were pretty darn cool. But Funny Games is basically pointing the camera at you and asking if you're falling into the typical rituals of horror/suspense films, and I liked that. I'm not hating on horror and suspense films (even though I can't say I like horror films since they all mostly rely on jump scares and not true horror like Blacula) because they follow a simple formula and it works to entertain the viewer, but I think it's always good to be aware of where a film will place you at times. Are you rooting for all the characters to die because they're completely incompetent? Are you hoping that one screaming female "protagonist" will run out of the building and survive? It's a refreshing change to have a film portraying all this violence and making you question it at the same time.

Can I recommend the film? Well, Arno Frisch and Ulrich Mühe are both beautiful, so, to an extent, yes. As a casual watch, it's not the best film. However, if you're looking for something a bit more deep and you're looking to release your anger on some characters, give it a watch. It's more leaning toward being an okay film than a really good film, but it'll get you talking.

A final remark - I never saw the remake (though it is supposedly the same film), but I don't feel any interest to watch it. The original is in German, so I'm sticking to it.

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