***Spoilers Ahead***
I just saw this film recently via Netflix. I understand how people in the 30's would have viewed this. It was the days of silent films, then out of nowhere comes this work. It would be akin to Avatar to a generation of "first world problems".
I didn't think it was terrible, because I appreciate the contents of the film to the history of its reality. I was doing fine, until that very last scene, when Lilliom comes back from the dead after ten years of living in hell. When he became frustrated at her daughter, when she would not let him in so he could show her some kind of "happiness", I found him very creepy, like a child-molesting person.
And then there was the slap. He slaps his own child because he found her extremely frustrating and whiny. I did, too, but that wasn't good enough of a reason to slap a young girl into submission.
Another weird thing, after the little girl was slapped, was how she felt like it was a "kiss". Then of course, the mother had to agree with her by saying this line: "It's possible for someone to beat you, and beat you, and beat you, and it not hurt at all."
Thanks for the advice, mother.
Some dysfunctional family. You have an abusive father, with the classic passive-aggressive mother (she couldn't even tell her own husband that there was someone else on the way!), and an innocent little girl.
There was probably someone who worked on the film who needed to confess his sins through the film.
I blame the author of the original book.
I just saw this film recently via Netflix. I understand how people in the 30's would have viewed this. It was the days of silent films, then out of nowhere comes this work. It would be akin to Avatar to a generation of "first world problems".
I didn't think it was terrible, because I appreciate the contents of the film to the history of its reality. I was doing fine, until that very last scene, when Lilliom comes back from the dead after ten years of living in hell. When he became frustrated at her daughter, when she would not let him in so he could show her some kind of "happiness", I found him very creepy, like a child-molesting person.
And then there was the slap. He slaps his own child because he found her extremely frustrating and whiny. I did, too, but that wasn't good enough of a reason to slap a young girl into submission.
Another weird thing, after the little girl was slapped, was how she felt like it was a "kiss". Then of course, the mother had to agree with her by saying this line: "It's possible for someone to beat you, and beat you, and beat you, and it not hurt at all."
Thanks for the advice, mother.
Some dysfunctional family. You have an abusive father, with the classic passive-aggressive mother (she couldn't even tell her own husband that there was someone else on the way!), and an innocent little girl.
There was probably someone who worked on the film who needed to confess his sins through the film.
I blame the author of the original book.