So Bad It's Bad





There are things I like about this movie: I like that it's from 1970, so the hairstyles, clothes and loactions are all great (I assume the exteriors when he's cycling are Munich - they certainly don't look like Fulham, then or now, though I could be wrong, happy to be pput straight. Also, I'm always suspicious when I see a conveniently situated red pillar box!)

However, I simply think life's too short for guessing games in movies. I don't need anything spelled out to me, I don't need my culture handed to me on a plate, but I hate that wilful obscurantism whereby people pat themselves on the back for guessing what the director "meant" by this fluorish or that colour ("You just gave me chills!" says a contributor on another thread).

If a movie is going to go down that route then the very least I expect is decent acting. Jane Asher aside, the acting here is unwatchable. I appreciate that English is not the first language of most of the cast, but some of the foley work here is so disembodied it reminds me of that effect Jacques Tati used to get in his movies - but I don't think that's what they were going for.

The "plot" meanders in that Sixties/Seventies way ("You want a STORY man? Get out!") as though to depict anything remotely joined-up would be thoroughly bourgeoise and STRAIGHT. The nudity must have seemed so daring then, and I have no doubt the papers fulminated, but it looks laughably gratuitous now. The movie reaches a low point with that interminable "hot dog" scene.

To complete my poo sandwich, I will say that the use of Can's Mother Sky was brilliant.





No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.

reply

It seems that the criticisms on this board have come from people who happened across the film quite by accident and were unprepared to engage their brains fully, unwilling to take the film on its own terms. You mention the painting of the baths, for instance. Well that's simply a pathetic fallacy, a device ubiquitous throughout the pictoral arts, not one just confined to modish '60s/'70s films that happen to bug you. Skolimowski's approach is arguably the opposite of obscurantism. Avoiding a literalistic method of storytelling in fact opens the film up to a plurality of readings. If life is too short to play these guessing games, then yes, stick to what you know. My guess is you'll miss out on a lot.

Oh whisky, leave me alone.

reply

Here here use ones Brain seems it's too hard some people love the bfi do a special features dvd

reply

Great movie, I just watched it and really loved.
8/10 !

Perfect ending too... I just cant imagine how differently it could end.

reply

The things you like about this movie (really? the hair & clothes styles?) are inconsequential. It was made when it was made. No one makes a movie with the intention of it being liked mainly for the era it was filmed in. Yet in the same breath you accuse it of having a "60s/70s style meandering plot," i.e. following a trend, that is apparently contemptible in your opinion.

If this movie had you guessing over anything then you must have some SERIOUS problems with movies of a more complex nature. You accuse the director of "willful obscurantism," while I accuse you of being pompous and pretentious. I have noticed the same angry, disgruntled attitude in a lot of people's posts very similar to this one, over movies where the viewer has to actually think, and the true meaning could be one of many interpretations. If you just didn't like the movie, you wouldn't be so inclined to berate it so acutely. The fact that you came here to the IMDb message boards just to say this movie is "so bad it's bad"

»«ëÕ|{¥(V)
I can't understand your crazy moon language.

reply

[deleted]

when he's cycling are Munich - they certainly don't look like Fulham, then or now, though I could be wrong, happy to be pput straight.


you are right some of it was filmed in Munich, however the scene withthe cycling is quotes as "Angel Lane, London, England, UK " which seems to be East London
I agree it does not look like Fulham but it still looked like London or the UK to me

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066122/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt

reply