I am glad to see some dissenting views from the general acclaim. I give this a 6 because it's clear from his commentary on the DVD that the director has lofty goals, and no doubt a distinctive style. But
this film makes Jim Jarmusch's movies seem miraculously fun! If I must have a diet of minimalist cinema now and then to keep me from ODing on over- produced H'wood claptrap, give me something that's more meaningful and beautiful. And all that hideous Louisiana Jazz Band music! In this context it has about as much "life-affirming" quality as a Benny Hill loop played about a 100 times.
Yes, there are some lovely moments, most notably the wedding dream that nearly ends the film. (Too bad it didn't, but it can't, can it? We have to follow it up with some more darkly "humorous" vignettes, and the Kubrickian final sequence of airplane bombers coming over the city. Huh? This is meant to be menacing, but it seems more ham-fisted and silly, whereas the plane flights in Dr. Strangelove were both bone-chilling and beautiful.)
In his commentary, Andersson says he never could identify with the characters in Bergman's films, because they were all "professors, doctors," etc. In the first place, this is simply false. In THE SEVENTH SEAL, for example, and SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, and many other Bergman films, characters of many social strata are represented. In the second place, if one wants to make films about "common" people (a very patronizing and smug way of looking at the world), at least make them intelligent and full of changing moods. Otherwise it seems like you despise the people your movie is supposed to be about and addressed to.
It's really a movie about zombies, but no one ever bites or gets bitten. The horror The horror!
Yes, there are some lovely moments, most notably the wedding dream that nearly ends the film. (Too bad it didn't, but it can't, can it? We have to follow it up with some more darkly "humorous" vignettes, and the Kubrickian final sequence of airplane bombers coming over the city. Huh? This is meant to be menacing, but it seems more ham-fisted and silly, whereas the plane flights in Dr. Strangelove were both bone-chilling and beautiful.)
In his commentary, Andersson says he never could identify with the characters in Bergman's films, because they were all "professors, doctors," etc. In the first place, this is simply false. In THE SEVENTH SEAL, for example, and SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, and many other Bergman films, characters of many social strata are represented. In the second place, if one wants to make films about "common" people (a very patronizing and smug way of looking at the world), at least make them intelligent and full of changing moods. Otherwise it seems like you despise the people your movie is supposed to be about and addressed to.
It's really a movie about zombies, but no one ever bites or gets bitten. The horror The horror!