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.
8 Reviews
Better than Yellow, if you're patient
Win-526 March 2007
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.
Like eyebrows, I Am Curious comes in two - which doesn't mean they're perfect eyebrows or well-matched
Quinoa198416 December 2008
I Am Curious: Blue is the second version, almost interchangeable in the respects of a) certain scenes overlapping or just cut and pasted from version Yellow to version Blue and b) many similar themes and the same characters, following version Yellow. Both films look at Sweden in the late 1960s, and it's all filtered through the unique perspective of Vilgot Sjoman, who makes a cinematic smoothie, if you will, of documentary, 'making-the-movie' dramatic scenes, drama involving the character Lena, scientific type questions posed by Lena (in glasses of course!), and a good deal of sex and nudity to keep the art-houses lapping up at the mouth. It's also potentially one of the most pretentious art-house experiments ever concocted, but at the same time its own self-consciousness and "Hey, it's a movie about movies, so lets make this movie and then forget its a movie for a while until I, Sjoman, pop up on screen again" style has its advantages for the willing participant.
Basically, there is no exact "plot" to either of the I Am Curious movies, and arguably even less so in Blue. While there is some connection to be made with Lena (Lena Nyman) and a married man, it's once again like Yellow mostly an amalgamation of interviews Lena does with everyday Swedes (topics this time range from wealth and jobs and income to religion to boys and girls at a dance) and Lena's wanderings in the Swedish countryside doing either her own kind of sociological experiments (or, as well, going skinny-dipping with a friend or not knowing she has scabies), or responding to Sjoman, who makes himself a character as a "director" of the project. It's hard to peg Sjoman, since he has created what is an alternate universe for himself to act in, which can be both fun and occasionally dull. Lena, however, is only somewhat talented as an actress, better at asking tough questions (I do love the scene with her and the Catholic stooge in the car) and taking her clothes off than giving a fully rounded performance.
In general, from my point of view, Blue isn't quite as consistently fascinating as Yellow. It stands out fair enough as far as the parts go- everything involving the interviews or docu/drama type things like Lena bicycling the opposite way of protesters is at least captivating and at most some of the best stuff of either movies- but on the whole its experimental style doesn't flow quite as well. Yet I still recommend it because it's attached to the Yellow part - the only movie that comes in two versions! Sort of.
Basically, there is no exact "plot" to either of the I Am Curious movies, and arguably even less so in Blue. While there is some connection to be made with Lena (Lena Nyman) and a married man, it's once again like Yellow mostly an amalgamation of interviews Lena does with everyday Swedes (topics this time range from wealth and jobs and income to religion to boys and girls at a dance) and Lena's wanderings in the Swedish countryside doing either her own kind of sociological experiments (or, as well, going skinny-dipping with a friend or not knowing she has scabies), or responding to Sjoman, who makes himself a character as a "director" of the project. It's hard to peg Sjoman, since he has created what is an alternate universe for himself to act in, which can be both fun and occasionally dull. Lena, however, is only somewhat talented as an actress, better at asking tough questions (I do love the scene with her and the Catholic stooge in the car) and taking her clothes off than giving a fully rounded performance.
In general, from my point of view, Blue isn't quite as consistently fascinating as Yellow. It stands out fair enough as far as the parts go- everything involving the interviews or docu/drama type things like Lena bicycling the opposite way of protesters is at least captivating and at most some of the best stuff of either movies- but on the whole its experimental style doesn't flow quite as well. Yet I still recommend it because it's attached to the Yellow part - the only movie that comes in two versions! Sort of.
As good as yellow even though it is different
friedmannc15 May 2020
Like Yellow, you will find a list of faults in most other reviews but I want to stick with "I liked it." This is where Lena becomes endearing, especially when she interviews a character in a car. The interesting questions were her own, asked with realism and the responses were too.
The sex was mostly and genuinely comedic with just breasts and rears like Yellow.
Like Yellow again, the political scenes were like flashbacks to history.
It's a good companion to Yellow showing more insight into the character of Lena.
The scene of her jumping into a shallow lake is a riot.
The good was good, the bad was tolerable, resulting in an another interesting movie.
Trash
jackmunro28 November 2004
I saw both of these movies on a double bill in 1970 (which means I actually paid to watch this rubbish). Interestingly, although I was very naive at the time, I was not the least bit turned on by any of the sexual content of the films, which was meant to be daring for the time. Furthermore, I could find no justification for the same movie being presented twice with different names (yellow and blue).
Funny thing! I tried to submit this comment as above. However, the system told me I had to write 10 lines. My problem was thinking of 10 lines to discuss such junk. I notice that not too many people have commented on the movies. Either they have not seen them or they also had trouble with finding 10 lines.
Funny thing! I tried to submit this comment as above. However, the system told me I had to write 10 lines. My problem was thinking of 10 lines to discuss such junk. I notice that not too many people have commented on the movies. Either they have not seen them or they also had trouble with finding 10 lines.
Introspective pornographic moments
eabakkum10 June 2016
Warning: Spoilers
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.
So-so
Cosmoeticadotcom12 September 2008
Warning: Spoilers
The films are based upon the two colors of the Swedish flag- a scheme that a quarter century later Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski would use to far greater effect with his Three Colors trilogy based upon the colors of the French flag. Neither of Sjöman's films are a good film, although Blue is better, for it has a bit better character arc, is less self-conscious, more meditative, and is fourteen minutes shorter (107 vs. 121), but neither are outright horrible films- merely dull and, with time's leveling, pointless exercises in puerile political masturbation. Blue does reuse some scenes from Yellow- such as scenes at a car dealership and a sex clinic. The films just seem sort of pointless all these years later. In retail language, they had a very short shelf life. Artistically, they are Ingmar Bergman on a really bad day, although Bergman was Sjöman's filmic idol, and politically they are about as deep as a thimble, larded with the naïve Left Wing tripe that the 1960s overdosed on, in reaction to the dying Right Wing Colonialist culture that arose for a last time after the Second World War. That Sjöman was 42 years old when he made these lightweight films is the only thing surprising because their ranting is more in line with a teenager's to their parent, when they are not allowed to do something destructive.
The two films follow the same tale, from slightly different perspectives. The putative lead character in both, Lena (Anna Lena Lisabet Nyman), is a 22 year old drama student sleeping with the 42 year old filmmaker Sjöman. The film is semi-documentary, and yet the camera also goes behind the scenes of the making of the film within the film, as well as ostensibly following Lena and other characters, like her on screen and offscreen lover Börje (Börje Ahlstedt) in places where it could not go, but the viewer is asked to believe unquestioningly. Of course, this mushes up the real, the 'real', and the staged, but not in a good nor profound way, and since none of the characters are deep nor well drawn, a viewer really has no interest in sniffing out which level is which, assuming that the levels confuse any viewers of intelligence .Like Bernardo Bertolucci's lame Last Tango In Paris, a few years later, neither of the I Am Curious films have relevance for anyone outside of their generation, which is a surefire marker that the art is bad. The acting is uniformly atrocious- Nyman later had a small role in Ingmar Bergman's 1978 Autumn Sonata, as the spastic daughter, but then faded from film history. Her co-stars were even less successful, and the I Am Curious films deserved their oblivion, for the years' passage has seen what at least seemed bold and innovative get pared down to dull and pretentious. Both films end abruptly, with no power nor insight, and if done to give verisimilitude to their 'reality', it seems a waste, for no one really can buy into what either film is selling- just as their self-conscious TV-style hucksterism seems aimed at children, not adults.
Vilgot Sjöman may have made some good or even great films before or after these, but these are a waste of most viewers' time, and do not even hold the historical power that the Up films from Britain do, for those films are real documentaries, while these are mere fantasies of a Utopia that never was, and could never be- as evidence by Lena's simpleminded anti-education raps. Thus leveled, time seeks a new Ozymandias.
The two films follow the same tale, from slightly different perspectives. The putative lead character in both, Lena (Anna Lena Lisabet Nyman), is a 22 year old drama student sleeping with the 42 year old filmmaker Sjöman. The film is semi-documentary, and yet the camera also goes behind the scenes of the making of the film within the film, as well as ostensibly following Lena and other characters, like her on screen and offscreen lover Börje (Börje Ahlstedt) in places where it could not go, but the viewer is asked to believe unquestioningly. Of course, this mushes up the real, the 'real', and the staged, but not in a good nor profound way, and since none of the characters are deep nor well drawn, a viewer really has no interest in sniffing out which level is which, assuming that the levels confuse any viewers of intelligence .Like Bernardo Bertolucci's lame Last Tango In Paris, a few years later, neither of the I Am Curious films have relevance for anyone outside of their generation, which is a surefire marker that the art is bad. The acting is uniformly atrocious- Nyman later had a small role in Ingmar Bergman's 1978 Autumn Sonata, as the spastic daughter, but then faded from film history. Her co-stars were even less successful, and the I Am Curious films deserved their oblivion, for the years' passage has seen what at least seemed bold and innovative get pared down to dull and pretentious. Both films end abruptly, with no power nor insight, and if done to give verisimilitude to their 'reality', it seems a waste, for no one really can buy into what either film is selling- just as their self-conscious TV-style hucksterism seems aimed at children, not adults.
Vilgot Sjöman may have made some good or even great films before or after these, but these are a waste of most viewers' time, and do not even hold the historical power that the Up films from Britain do, for those films are real documentaries, while these are mere fantasies of a Utopia that never was, and could never be- as evidence by Lena's simpleminded anti-education raps. Thus leveled, time seeks a new Ozymandias.
Blue - a look at Swedish values and norms
Jerry-Kurjian2 April 2006
"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.
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.
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