Jul. 28th, 2019

jetpack_monkey: (Sisko - Like a Boss)
Hello friends! Still deep in Ingmar Bergman-land, so all films save Platinum Blonde are Bergman-directed.

Films in italics are ones I've seen previously.

Dreams (1955)
A Lesson in Love (1954)
Scenes from a Marriage (television version) (1973)
Saraband (2003)
From the Life of Marionettes (1980)
Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Platinum Blonde (1931)
Shame (1968)
The Passion of Anna (1969)
Fårö Document (1970)
Fårö Document 1979 (1979)

I'm not going to comment on everything this week, just films where I have something to actually say.

I really liked A Lesson in Love, even if it's considered "minor" Bergman. Given my ADHD, you can often gauge my interest by how often I check to see how much time is left in a film. I think I checked once during A Lesson in Love. It's a cute domestic comedy about a married couple who may or may not reconcile after many years and a few affairs.

Scenes from a Marriage is not, strictly speaking, a film, even though it did get edited into a film for US release. However, it was a sublime experience in human relationships, told over the course of six episodes. It really made me think about how intimate people can communicate, fail to communicate, reach for intimacy, hurt each other. There's one episode where Liv Ullman's character expresses three different emotions about her husband, including pity and affection, but in reality, they're all faces of the same, tangled, complicated emotion. Really good stuff.

From the Life of Marionettes was just unpleasant.

Hour of the Wolf is the closest that Bergman has ever come to a horror movie. It's my second time seeing it and I still don't fully understand what's happening in it, but the imagery is haunting.

Platinum Blonde was a recommendation of my mother's. She seemed to really dig this one actor who died shortly after the film was made. I didn't really get into the movie. I thought it was fine, kind of cute, and that it had some good moments. There's a lovely explanation of puttering that will stay with me. Ultimately, though, it was not the kind of classic that will stay in my heart.

Thanks to the Fårö Documents, I've now seen both a sheep and a pig slaughtered and butchered, plus an entire montage of baby sheep being pooped out, so... yay? Thanks, Ingmar.

This week is Bergman's "Absence of God" trilogy, as well as The Virgin Spring and The Seventh Seal, among others.

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