I watched this a few years ago. I was thinking about rewatching it for this blog series, but I should probably wait a bit more before rewatching it? So I’m not.
Anyway, it’s an amazing movie, so the odd thing here is that it hasn’t featured on the Sight & Sound directors’ list before. But the 2022 list has a number of more experimental films than the 2012 list, so I guess it makes sense in that context.
These are the directors that voted for it. And… Gaspar Noé and Frank Oz? Yes, I can see how both those directors would enjoy it. But now I’m wondering how Oz’s list looks like.
Hm… I guess Eraserhead is an outlier here, but perhaps it’s the puppy action that made him put it on the list?
You’d think after a lifetime of watching Italian movies I’d be used to the Italian approach to sound — i.e., not recording it, but adding it in post-production. But I’m not! Every time I watch an (old) Italian movie, it comes as a fresh shock.
Well, almost — sometimes it’s done so seamlessly that you almost don’t notice it, but more often than not (like here) I doubt the lines were even written when they filmed it, so the audio doesn’t match up with the actors much. I suspect the actors are just going “rabarbaro rabarbaro melanzane” in a vague way…
And the Italians allow the sound to go to absolute silence a lot — there’s foley work, of course, but sometimes the sound goes to _________ which never really happens in most movies — there’s almost always room ambience of some kind.
This movie isn’t on the critics’ top 250, but it’s #53 on the directors’ list because these directors voted for it. Hm… Roy Andersson makes sense… Sofia Coppola? Hm…
It’s an odd film. I think Antonioni is trying to say something with these constant juxtapositions of old (sometimes dilapidated) buildings and these brand new sky scrapers?
You know… sometimes you watch a movie and it’s not connecting, but then suddenly it snaps into focus and is riveting?
This is one of those movies. All of a sudden it’s the best! movie! ever!
Of course Jeanne Moreau is great.
That’s a good-looking gas station.
All these odd angles and weird ways of framing the shot… I love it.
It’s so weird… I feel like I’ve seen this before — but not exactly like this. Like a remake of this or something. But only certain scenes, like when she was walking around in that neighbourhood, and when they’re arriving at the party…
So many odd angles…
I can see why this isn’t on the critics’ list — it’s so oddly structured, and doesn’t go anywhere you’re expecting, really. But it’s just a fascinating movie: Every scene is gripping, and the stranger it gets, the more “right” it feels. It’s a stunning, gorgeous movie, with amazing performances by Mastroianni, Moreau and Vitti.
I watched this movie five years ago, and it’s not new on the 2022 list — it was #16 then, and now it’s fallen down to #53. But Criterion has released a nice blu ray collection… which includes the TV series version! So I’m taking this opportunity to watch that.
Does that make sense? No? No.
But it’s more than five hours long (two hours more than the film version), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this version before, so… what evs.
(Actually, I’m not quite sure — it was shown on TV when it was new, and I’m pretty sure I saw it then. But I’m not sure whether they showed the film or TV version.)
Since the TV version is like *maths* *calculations* *slide rule* 40% longer than the film version (5:21 vs 3:08), I was wondering what Bergman had dropped — I mean, whole sub plots, or just dropped some scenes and shortened others. So far (I mean, I’m just half an hour in), it’s the latter, I think. That is, there’s definitely scenes here that aren’t in the film version, but no additional characters or plot points.
That is, it moves a lot slower than the film version. Each scene seems longer — which suits the material. More time is dedicated to the peripheral characters.
Like these two — were they in the film version? Hm…
It’s like a Mythical Swedish Christmas Performance thing.
Well, the first 90 minutes flew by. The first episode covers the Christmas party and what happens during the following night. There were a couple of scenes that felt slightly superfluous, so I can see why Bergman cut them for the film version, but it mostly just seems like a more sensitive version of that sequence than was in the movie. That is, Bergman didn’t really cut anything really essential.
And now we’re onto the next day, and I’m guessing we’re now going to be seeing a whole lot more scenes that weren’t in the film version.
He’s so evil!!!
They have sailor’s suits for mourning!? The Swedes are so advanced.
This section was perhaps better in the film? It was more compressed, and it’s a section that (perhaps bizarrely enough) doesn’t feel that important dramatically: The father dies, which takes us from the part of the movie where the children are happy, to the part where they’re unhappy, but it feels like it’s there because it has to be — not because Bergman is that invested in it.
OK, a part of why I enjoy this movie so much is just because I love these interiors. My ideal apartment is one that is 90% hallways.
SO EVEIEL
The film is called Fanny & Alexander, but Fanny barely has any lines…
I didn’t quite remember this bit being this melodramatic… I mean, waking up a kid in the middle of the night — with lightning flashing — that more than a bit over the top.
I’m not criticising — I’m just saying.
So evil!!!
Oh, this scene with the ghosts was cut, I think?
This couple must be the most pathetic in movie history. But funny.
He’s so evil!
And in this longer version, his evility (that’s a word) is rather over the top.
The three hour version of this is great drama, and the five hour version is great melodrama? In either film, it’s impossible not to cry when Jacobi stages the Kid Saving Heist, but it’s got a different resonance?
I’m not sure I would recommend the longer version over the shorter unreservedly. The first and last sections — the ones that have the least plot and the most magic — are definitely more better in the longer version: More of a good thing is an even better thing. The three middle sections (which are the shorter sections) don’t really benefit much from having more time. Those sections have a lot of plot that should move snappily, and in the longer version, the plots lack that snap.
So — is the added magic in the first and last sections worth the lack of snappiness in the middle sections? Uhm…
*phew* I thought I was watching the wrong movie… I saw this one a few years back, but I’m rewatching it now because Criterion published a fabulous Agnès Varda bluray box set — apparently with all her movies? I’m looking forward to watching them all after I’m done with this Sight & Sound movie thing…
Futura!
This is really nicely restored… it’s still got plenty of film grain, but absolutely all scratches and specks of dust have been removed.
Aaaahhh this is so good. Just the way Varda tipped the camera there from Cléo’s maid who was doing a boring story to this “random” couple… genius.
Of course, it’s hard to separate the charm of looking at Paris (well, I think it’s Paris) in the early 60s from the rest…
And these shots that shouldn’t work — driving the camera right into her face? And then doing a 160 degree? That shouldn’t work, but it just contributes to the giddiness of watching this.
Yes exactly.
There’s not even the slightest attempt at making the Cléo character sympathetic, which is fun.
That’s what I want my bedroom to look like!
I’m calling my interior decorator right now.
Oh, famous people…
I really enjoy this movie, but this section — where she meets a soldier boy destined for Algeria — it loses a lot of its charm. It’s not that it get more didactic than before, but it’s just not a very compelling character.
Eeek
It’s a great movie. If I have one criticism, it’s just that they didn’t do any audio when filming, so sometimes the video/audio connection is a bit vague? I mean, they’ve dubbed it nicely and all, but it sometimes gets a bit distracting — and I don’t think I noticed as much in the DVD edition, so the deficiencies just get clearer with added fidelity. Or something.
I remember I was quite excited to watch this film when it was new. Campion had done two pretty good things before this — Sweetie and An Angel at My Table (which led me to Janet Frame’s novels and poetry, which I liked a lot).
And then I watched this film and I was all… “what the fuck? Oscar bait?”
But perhaps it was all early-20s hipsterishness (“I liked her before she got popular”) thing? So I’m totally open to me being mistaken.
Oh, fuck this. It’s one of those elevator pitch movies? “It’s about a woman who chooses not to speak, but she speaks through her piano” (which probably goes missing in the Jungles of New Zealand; I don’t quite recall).
Odd white balance.
Holly Hunter gives great Oscar face.
Oh man.
Nooo the pianner.
I do appreciate that Campion has given that guy facial tattoos — whenever there’s two male actors of approximately the same build/age/hair colour, I can never keep them apart. So I like characters wearing eye patches or wooden legs, arr.
Well… in my 20s, I thought this movie was total bollocks. I don’t quite dislike it as much now — I’m picking up more of the deliberate oddnesses in the movie, like the shot above… there’s like sequences the I’m not annoyed by? But then the plot starts happening again and I’m bored again.
It’s not as Oscar-baity as I remembered it being — it’s just really odd, and I like that. But we’re almost at the halfway point, so I guess something really dramatic and boring is gonna happen any moment now…
And indeed — once she finally has sex with the tattooed guy the other guy is there to overhear it. Perfect!
The first time around, I also missed how funny some of the scenes are… like when she’s sort of having sex with the guy without tattoos.
It does seem slightly racist, though.
OK, I have to admit it — I was wrong when I saw this back in 1993. It’s not an awful movie — it’s a pretty interesting one.
