Title: Harold and Maude
Year: 1971
Director: Hal Ashby
Country: U.S
Language: English
If you want to sing out, sing out. Hal Ashby’s life affirming Harold and Maude is a wonderful and
hilarious dark comedy about a rich young man named Harold (Bud Cort) who is obsessed
with death and an old woman named Maude(Ruth Gordon)who can’t get enough of
life. They meet in a rather odd place, at a funeral, and fall
into deep conversation when she asks if he needs a ride in the hearse she stole
from him. The fact that Harold drives a hearse instead of a sports car should
tell give you an idea of how unhappy and melancholy he feels about his life.
Has this life and death story been shown before? Perhaps, but Harold and Maude is so funny and
relatable that one tends to forget about all the other plots that are similar
to this film.
Harold represents death. He is indeed a man with a
problem. Though he is incredibly rich,
he is also very unhappy, which seems typical for most mainstream characters who
have a large sum of money with exception of Tony Stark (Ironman reference). The main problem is that he has not lived, he
backs away from life because he is scared of what is out there . He has not
taken any risks in his “life”, perhaps because he “lives” under the rule of his
ignorant mother. She, like most typical
rich authority figures in cinema, thinks she can buy Harold’s love and fix
Harold’s problems with money and extravagant presents. Even when she wishes to
set Harold up with a lovely internet woman, she ignores Harold’s thoughts and
answers the online questionnaire using her own judgement. Harold is aching with
unhappiness , he tries to show this to
his mother through his various hilarious fake suicide attempts but alas she
does not give a crap.
Maude represents death. Like Jack of Titanic and many other characters she doesn’t have much money but
what she lacks in finances she makes up for in life. Maude is not afraid to
live or to get down and dirty in a political protest sense. Her motto is “LIVE!”, she says to Harold “Give
me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you
got nothing to talk about in the locker room.” She is not afraid to make a fool
of herself, she’s not afraid to take a
chance. This, of course, has a profound effect on the rich, young and unhappy
Harold whose life has been series of bland and repetitive events.
Some problems I have with this film is that it hasn’t said
anything many films haven’t said before. The story has been used time and time
again. The characters have also been used many times, if this were Titanic Harold would be Rose and Maude would
be joke, though I realize that it’s an unfair comparison of characters as Harold and Maude came first. Still the
point remains the same. However, Harold
and Maude is quite unique in the way that it uses its used storyline and characters.
I’d argue that this is the best, if into one of the best life affirming film in the history of cinema because of the dark humour
involved . My personal favourite scene in this film is when Harold fakes
Hara-Kiri to get his date to leave him alone, however she is an actor and
thinks that Harold is brilliant, reciting lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and fake dying right
beside him.
In conclusion, though some aspects of the film have been
used, overall it is quite a humorous and well-made film. Reach out, grab this
film, scare your mother and her mother too.
Take a chance, make an ass out of yourself if you have to. L-I-V-E. Live! Watch this film, analyze your life, and
then go plant a tree or something ya hippie. 3.5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment