OK. Here goes. Last night I watched Thomas Vinterberg's movie, The Commune, a Danish film. Immediately came to mind My Queen Karo. The star of that film said that the hippie culture taught us that free love and hippie lifestyle did not work. He was right. And when you watch The Commune, it will become obvious that that sentiment is reiterated.
This film is a point of view film. And the action goes from a healthy plateau to straight downhill with the wind in a basket...a linear structure. The only other film which comes to mind immediately that is similiar in this structure and point of view is The Birds. The main characters in this The Commune film are Erik, Anna, Freja, and Emma, a husband and wife and their daughter and the other woman. Now it is easy to feel a tremendous sympathy for Anna. Her husband Erik ends up bringing his lover Emma into the commune which he heads with the ultimate result of his wife leaving a broken and humiliated woman. At one point Anna pleads with Emma to share Erik with her, stating that Erik knew her so well that his instincts about her from the physical level to the emotional level proved that they were meant for each other.
But Anna did not get my sympathy. She did not know Erik and assumed that she could control him as she always had. But unfortunately for people who push Erik, he explodes when he is pushed to do something he doesn't want to, and his resulting decisions change his course of thinking and actions permanently.
In the beginning of The Commune, Anna wants to move into the large house that Erik inherited from his family. He has done the math and cannot concede that he and Anna and Freja can afford it. Here is the pivotal point: Anna tells Erik that she is bored with him, and she needs stimulation of other people in their lives. So Erik concedes. But something has happened to Erik: he is no longer satisfied with Anna. He succumbs to his third-year student Emma's "play for the A." Things heat up. Erik and Emma are caught by Freja in the act. Now note the astuteness of Freja. Erik asks Freja why she didn't tell her mother what she knew. She says, "I don't want things to change." Erik says that he will tell her mother. So what does he do? He tells Anna. And boy do things change.
So the upshot of this film is...the theme...that once the words are out in the etheric, they don't disappear. They ring forever. And had Erik and Anna used discretion, things might have ended differently.
The other night I saw a film which had the same theme: Three Night Stand. Instead of a triangle as in The Commune there was an octagonal or the one up from that which precipitated marrital disintegration. So, the upshot is that sometimes you need to just to learn to keep your mouth shut.
I give it 5 of 5 stars. The direction, action, photography were excellently.
Review of The Commune
