Edvard Munch (1974)

I saw this really interesting movie yesterday, Edvard Munch, directed by Peter Watkins. It was 50% documentary, 50% drama, and 100% madness. (Okay maybe 80% madness…the other 20% seemed logical to me. *grin*)

There was a narrator who set up most of the scenes and gave context to the short lines that passed between the actors. The movie jumped around a lot between scenes.

I thought it was the weirdest thing (in the beginning) that Munch kept looking at the camera (or viewer). Freaky! But it was really the only way that I was drawn into the movie.

The way everything else was set up, I felt very disconnected from everything and from the characters, and that the characters were disconnected from each other.

But then it was very successful in expressing Munch’s state of mind, his madness, the childhood events that shaped him.

What really sucked was that I was struggling to stay awake during the movie (no fault of the film; it was just one of my sleepy days). A lot of the lines went through my head without imparting any bit of information, and I ended up sleeping for about ten or fifteen minutes, halfway through the second part. Argh!

But hey, if the film got that much through to me in that state, imagine how much better it is when you’re fully awake! hah! And luckily, the movie is on DVD! The question now is, do I want to add it to my library or just watch it a second time? (The guy who played Munch sure was cute though…)

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