two movies

I have 3 weeks until I begin my full time job so I have been basically taking it easy. I have been reading a lot and watching a lot of movies on DVD. And the other day I enjoyed quite a double feature. First I watched a movie called "Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days", a critically acclaimed movie that deserves all the accolades. Its set in 1987 in Romania and it deals with the relationship between two friends when one of them has to get an illegal abortion. It is a truly amazing movie, with great acting a a ten minute sequence so full of suspense, fear and dread that I found myself closing my eyes. I am not kidding. Very few movies have touched me the way this movie did. It won the big prize at Cannes and I hope it gets the Oscar. This is such a great movie.

While still on this mood I watched an Ingmar Bergman movie called "The Silence". I recall seeing this movie on PBS when I was kid basically because it dealt with sex and had some nude scenes. Since the world of sex was still a mystery to me, I was enthralled by this movie. Now many years later, I realize that it is an interesting, somewhat cold movie about the relationship between two women(sisters). There are some undertones of lesbianism and incest, which must have been pretty weird back in the early 1960's. Well, the idea would be unthinkable in a movie today, but that's another story. The acting is amazing, the camerawork is excellent ( I am sure Kubrick saw this movie before shooting "The Shining"). But like all Bergman films it leaves one kind of cold and pessimistic about life. Still I liked it.

I must admit this was quite an interesting double bill. But I made a note to myself to watch a lighter movie next. And I did. I watched "Snoopy, Come Home" which turned out to be not so light at all.