MovieChat Forums > Harold and Maude (1971) Discussion > Watching for first time and....

Watching for first time and....


Was wondering about Maude and her way of looking at life, wondering where it vane from then the scene of Harold just seeing for just a second her Auschwitz tattoo. That was such a great way to subtly tell us where her or look on life cane from. If u could have survived Auschwitz you definitely have a new found respect for the life u have and how to live it.

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I loved that too. And also the scene where Maude tells Harold about her past protests and Frederik (?) and says, "But that was all before..." and turns her head away and only once Harold speaks again does she turn around kind of dazed and you can see tears in her eyes. It's so powerful because it's so mysterious, did Frederik die in the concentration camp, was she thinking about her own time there or something else entirely? For all of Maude's honesty and openness all through the movie, it gives her character more depth to show that there are some things even she holds back, and even though she is so upbeat and vivacious, she can still understand pain and the "being dead" that Harold feels. I didn't think too much of it the first time around, I figured that Frederik was her husband who had died under normal circumstances and she missed him. Rewatching it after seeing the tattoo changed a lot for me.

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