Hal Ashby
Harold And Maude

THE REVIEW

In Harold and Maude, there's everything you need. In cinema and in life.

Actors, actresses, direction, photography, and settings in a state of grace.

You laugh a lot and you cry, but out of a happiness. You listen to the wonderful music of Cat Stevens.

You learn to play the banjo. And to sing.

They make fun of, in order: death, priests, funerals, conformist parents, bourgeois education, wealth, arranged engagements, the police, psychoanalysis, the army, war, old age, which does not exist in Maude.

There's youth, which can be very sad.

You are reminded of racism and Nazism, and yet the strength of life, humanity, and nature. Of the simplicity and ease of living happily. There's art (Maude poses nude for a sculptor!), imagination (splendid fake suicides by H.), and inventiveness (M. has built a contraption that spreads scents: snow, subway, and many more).

There's the disarming courage of man and the unconditional and concrete love for nature (we kidnap trees from the city to save them, we shout at the wind, we roll down the meadow). The sunflowers and the little birds.

The sweet teaching to those who need it: live, live, live!

And love, without barriers. Love as it is, as it comes. Sex. Complicity. And the right to choose the moment of one's death. The firmness of the decision, nonetheless.

Non-attachment to material things, not even to a love symbol object, like a ring, which is thrown into the sea (so I will always know where it is).

In the final scene, then, there's everything. Everything. The ability to free ourselves from things that are no longer needed.

The fruit, given and that will remain forever, of a wonderful example.

There's also speed.

For all these marvels, it's my favorite film. Always and forever.

Others, many others, are much loved. Indispensable. Of a breathtaking beauty and depth. Cinema is a place of happiness.

But this is Harold and Maude.