Scenes from a Marriage (Swedish: Scener ur ett äktenskap)

Movie: Scenes from a Marriage

Year: 1973

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Language: Swedish

Synopsis: Originally a TV series which was later released on DVD. The six part series attained cult status worldwide when it was condemned for allegedly inspiring a spike in Scandinavian divorce rates, which almost doubled in the year of its release. The movie is split into 6 chapters where a married couple Marianne and Johan go through their marriage and take us through the aptly named chapters Innocence and panic, Art of sweeping things under the rug, Paula, The Vale of Tears, The Illiterates and In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House Somewhere in the World. Each part is shot in about one or two set ups with elaborate conversations about events which have happened in the past. Each of these chapters are separated by months or years. The complexity of the movie is in the intense acting, claustrophobic sets and the realistic story.

My own take: The movie hits you with an impact that takes quite some time to sink. The intense scenes and the underlying grief and tension in a marriage when you keep a calm exterior for social needs is beautifully depicted in this movie. The story sounds familiar yet brings out from the closet the obvious elephant in the room which no one seems to mention. Strongly recommended but not when you are already in a serious mood. The iconic dialogues that they are "the emotional illiterates" and, like many people, are incapable of marriage; yet they do not separate sums a large part of the movie theme.

Run Lola Run (German : Lola Rennt)

Movie: Run Lola Run

Year: 1998

Director: Tom Tykwer

Language: German

Synopsis: The movie is pretty simplistic in its story line. Lola’s boy friend, Manni runs into deep shit at some point of time and needs urgent help with Money. Manni has to get the money within 20 minutes before his boss finds out, and plans to rob a nearby supermarket. Lola urges him to wait and tells him she will sort out the money.Lola won’t let the moment slip away and runs to save her Manni. The run ends with a dramatic closure. Lola wakes up to have another run at saving his boy friend only this time its Run 2. The outcome is like life: a result of the choices you make.

My own take: I remember having seen a Calvin n Hobbes strip long back where he moves about the whole house trying to zap people with a remote control. I know we all wished if it were true. If we could have saved our life at a specific point and gone back there and made different choices. Lesser heartbreaks, lesser pains and more control over “life”. However the fantasy that’s shown in Run Lola Run is the one we all want to live. Lola runs from her phone to the street to meet Manni and in between crashes with a lot of people and every time their response is different. However as the choices are different, the outcomes are different and more importantly the twists are different. The deep desire to have life as a video game where you die only to realize you have 2 additional lifes saved is the thrill. One of the rare films where the language is just not important to get into the skin of the movie.