Very Cool!!!

Powerful

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film "I am curious - blue" is the twin of "I am curious - yellow". In the film the producers even use this similarity between the two as an argument to recommend their acquisition ("Now also available in blue"). Since I already have reviewed the latter, the present comments can be succinct. Both films are made in the style of the nouvelle vague. This type of films appeared mainly in the roaring sixties and early seventies, launched by innovative producers. Both the blue and yellow version are political films, notably about Swedish life, and presented in the style of a documentary. Remember the wise words of the French writer Paulhan: "All I ask is that politicians change the world, and not also the truth". In fact the script is replete with bizarre arguments. One wonders what is meant to be satire and what not. Whereas the yellow version still contains a love story, of the leading woman Lena, the blue version is just a sequence of interviews. It addresses the then topics of interest: the inequality of income, nonviolent resistance, imprisonment, religion, and of course sexuality (including homosexual relations and sexual diseases). If men got pregnant, they would not think twins were so cute (joke, to keep this review entertaining). While in principle the reconsideration of the social norms was indeed befitting, "I am curious" follows the nasty New Left habit of abolishing all norms without replacement by new ones. The viewer is simply encouraged to experiment and discover his or her own boundaries (see the title). Evidently this is a poor recipe for success. Thus the "I am curious" couple tends to endorse stupidity, albeit presented in a tone of moral superiority. You do not have a dirty mind, but introspective pornographic moments. You are not sleeping around, but monogamically challenged. This qualifies the films as accurate images of the time, but also makes them out of date and somewhat unpleasant to watch. Moreover I find the blue version less funny than the yellow one. The reader may decide for him- or herself whether "I am curious" deserves a closer examination. Don't hesitate to leave a comment. I love it.

After seeing both films, I'd characterize Yellow as the more light-hearted of the two, but Blue has much more to offer. It might just be that I was more prepared for the semi-random storytelling, but I spent less time feeling lost and/or jerked around during Blue - while still not having an actual plot, it seemed to spend more time on the people and the relationships, to good effect. Lena is facing more of the world, getting closer to the people she meets, and facing the "dark side" of people's personalities. Friends turn out to be not fully committed to her politics, or they treat each other poorly, or they do not care for her as she wishes they would. It's not always a pretty movie, but it's definitely one worth seeing.

"Jag är nyfiken – Blue" is a more contemplative and somewhat less vibrant film than "Jag är nyfiken – Yellow." Much of Blue takes place outside of Stockholm, along rural byways in the north of Sweden - the land of the midnight sun - as Lena undertakes a journey to find her mother. The frenetic exuberance of Yellow is replaced by a sense of foreboding and gloom. The themes of religion, violence, lesbianism, marriage, impotency, and scabies all intertwine to create Blue's dour fabric. Also less evident in Blue is the "documentary-ing" of Vilgot Sjöman and his crew - although they do make several stunning appearances, for example, just before and after Lena and Börje's reunion, and again, very poignantly, near the end of the film. Overall, Blue strikes me as an interesting but less unconventional film than its sunny other-half.Having watched both Yellow and Blue now, I have an urge to sum up what I found and did not find in Sjöman's brilliant twins. In both films, Sjöman and Lena are unafraid to ask real people real questions. Their responses are presented to us without editorial remark or ridicule. This kind of authenticity never grows old. Sjöman and Lena, through hard work and improvisation, create scenes that are touching, funny, and dorky. Their work left me with feelings similar to those I had after watching Cassavetes' Shadows and Faces. At their best, Sjöman and Lena expose the contradictions that exist between people, between systems, between nations. However, although Sjöman has cast a wide net, there are many issues, read *contradictions*, that are noticeably missing from both Yellow and Blue. While lesbianism and female bisexuality is explored, male homosexuality is not. Neither alcohol, a substance that causes perennial anxiety among Swedes, nor drugs, another taboo, has a place in either film. Criticism of Franco and the US is prominent, while the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and the ongoing oppression in both the Soviet Union and China and their satellites go unanalyzed. I mention this not as a rebuke of the films, but rather as a way of putting them in some kind of perspective.

Looking at the number of imdb voters for both the I Am Curious films, it seems that few who watch the first end up watching the second (there are 194 votes for Yellow, and 46 for Blue). That's not surprising. Four hours of near-randomness is surely a bit difficult to sit through. And the four hours provide limited rewards. Yet, as one of the few who actually did finish both films, I hardly feel unrewarded. In fact, I think, having seen it all, the sum is greater than the parts. Sjöman does present a kaleidoscope of emotion and thoughts, all very fragmentary, of course, but the fragments are currently drifting around in my mind. I Am Curious might not be a ton of fun to sit through, but I think the films will be a part of me for longer than I might have originally guessed. As a closing note, I must say that the films' lead actress, Lena Nyman, gives an extraordinary performance, which is another aspect that isn't very obvious if you've just seen Yellow. She runs the entire gamut of emotion. As an actress who is certainly being horribly objectified by her director, she ends up coming out on top of it. If there's one thing I'll take out of the films, it's the sight of her dark, sad, curious gaze. She went on to better things, for example, Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata. Bergman surely realized her talent. I don't remember much in that film besides the two lead performances, who, even if there were a thousand other talented performers in it, would have drawn every ounce of attention towards themselves. I'll have to check it out a second time some day to find Nyman. 7/10.