Can't help you either because I think they're 'good' (actually 'great') films, too. The most impressive (to me that is) thing is that they STILL hold so well (they stood the test of time IMHO).
I suspect that most people watch these (and similarly 'famous') films for all the 'wrong' reasons, LOL.
well d!ck, there is another time, like NON-LINEAR. (for example Pulp Fiction is non-linear)
i said, the way they used linear time. if you've seen both films you would know what i mean. the films are parallel to each other in time. so all the scenes you didn't see in Yellow are in Blue and vice versa. enhancing the story of the other i.e. one would not get the full story if one watched only Yellow, or only Blue. You would have to see them both in order to get the entirety of the story.
Well, I'll do my best although I didn't hate it persay.
I scored this and its compliment a 6. I couldn't latch onto the film anywhere and figure out what direction it was going in, what was real (if any) and what was scripted. It feels like two different movies at once and they're both independent of each other, yet trying to intertwine themselves to be inseperable.
I appreciated them and what they were trying to accomplish, but I didn't really like them, if that makes sense.
Incidentally, I liked the social commentary scenes more than the others, and as far as why I decided to watch it, it was because Criterion released it.
My guess is that people expected a sex film and that's NOT what this is. The sex is there but it's hardly graphic and is used mostly for political reasons. Also this still carries a ridiculous X rating (I think it would get an R today). Remember--this is still considered a sex film so people seeing it for that are going to be disappointed.
I actually disliked this movie. I found the love/sex/semi-story sections to be inferior to the jokes placed throughout the movie (guess what's in the bag!!!) and the socialism questions in the beginning.
this movie was not good by any stretch of the definition of that word.
Screened this last night at local rep theater...2nd film screened, and it was honestly hugely dissapointing. this was the movie on the bill that made me go inside the theater and say hey i've heard of this let me check it out.... and the result was like Goddard but without the humor or the heart. It was all agit prop with sexual interludes in between. I mean I get that the agit prop was character based, and are clutches for the characters to cling to, the way people normally cling to their strongly held beliefs or politics or whatever. that's universal of course, but the thing is, so help me i didn't find any of this remotely entertaining, i found it grindingly boring and obvious.
The film within a film was neat when they would cut to it every so often, but after a while, even that couldn't save this movie from being the chore it was to sit through. I gave it a shot, I really tried to get into it, I sat there the entire time just stunned that I couldn't get into either its story, or its characters, none of the characters were sympathetic or charismatic! they were just props, mouth pieces, bodies, the film didn't work for me on any level that i could connect to. I don't even think it was shot all that well quite frankly.
Basically this movie stunk. It struck me as someone badly wanting to be Goddard, the way directors the last decade have badly wanted to be Tarentino.
Sorry to be so differing in my opinion here, but yeah having seen it now, I honestly can't see how or why its regarded in the high standard that it is.
Terribly sorry, but when you misspell (twice) such a 'famous' director as Godard (on IMDb, no less) you lose all the credibility in my eyes. I DO wonder what might be the reason for such 'missteps'. Bad (film) education, laziness? But then again, you're not the first nor the last one. So it goes...
Re: "the result was like Goddard but without the humor or the heart."
You are of course fully entitled to dislike the film, but the reasons you try to give sure suggest a whole lot about where the problem might lie...
You are right about Sjöman having been influenced by Godard but totally wrong about the film being humourless. There's plenty of it there - heck, just tonight I came back from a rare screening in Scandinavia with constant chuckles from the audience (and in all the right places, I might add) - but maybe a different sense of humour is needed here?
I mean c'mon, how can you not chuckle at the self-irony of showing the socially-conscious student interviewing a child about whether they think Sweden is a society divided by class, or at the sight of a soldier collecting donations for the cause of giving Sweden their first atom bomb (or indeed, all the real-life passers-by taking it all at face value, haha). Hilarious, I think, but not in the most obvious in-your-face kind of way.
As for "the heart" of the movie, for me it's all in the character of Lena Nyman: her sincerity even in the moments of being confused about the big issues at hand. Gotta love her quest!
I think it stems more with the nature of the movie. It is an art house film and that inherently has a limited audience. Most people watching Criterion released Swedish movies from the 1960s with entirely naked people on the back cover of the DVD box, probably aren't giving it lower ratings due to the sexuality or political ideologies. More than likely people watching either of the "I Am Curious" films expected it to be even crazier than it was and were just bored. This film is known for what it achieves narratively than anything with acting, cinematography, character development, or dialogue. That is only going to interest a limited amount of people.
I enjoyed the playfulness of the experiment, however, I do think it could have achieved something more intriguing, with more engaging characters.