Harold and Maude

In class we watched Harold and Maude, and I must say I was very taken aback by this film. I had never seen it before, and didn't know what to expect. Harold is a spoiled, melodramatic young man living with his vapid and self-centered mother. Harold spends most of his time hanging out at funerals and pretending to commit suicide to shock his mother because he hates her so much. One day at a funeral, Harold meets a rather kooky old lady named Maude, who makes a habit of stealing cars and generally causing trouble. Harold and Maude eventually become friends, stealing cars and trees and even police motorcycles together. When Harold's mother employs his uncle in trying to fast-track him to get drafted to the war, Maude poses as an anti-war protester to help Harold so he doesn't have to join the army. Eventually Harold begins to fall in love with Maude, and they even sleep together. In the end, on Maude's 80th birthday, Harold intends to propose to her when Maude breaks the news to him that she took "the tablets" already and would be dead by midnight. Panicked, Harold calls an ambulance and rushes her to the hospital, but it's too late and Maude dies in the hospital. Distraught, Harold drives around in his fancy sports car around a cliff before sending the car off the edge. For a moment the camera makes it seem that Harold died in the crash, but then we see him standing on the edge holding his banjo. After a moment he begins to play the song that Maude had sung with him and skips away, having truly learned how to live his life the way he wants to. I really enjoyed the movie even though it was nothing like I expected. The dark humor contrasting with the sunny moral of the story make it an easy cult classic.
The director made very good use of the soundtrack as well as camera movement and well-timed shots to create a film environment that was subtle and gripping at the same time. There were a lot of quiet scenes in the film with no dialogue, where actors would simply stare at each other or complete tasks silently, with no score or sound effects laid over the natural sound. Many films have difficulty knowing when not to have the actors speak, and Harold and Maude executed this very well in my opinion. Many of the suicide scenes with Harold were horrifying at first, but the more you saw, the funnier it got. The absence of music or sound effects during those scenes heightened the humor of the slow, deliberate loading of a gun or of Harold floating face down in a swimming pool.