Review of Harold and Maude (1971) by Karlo M — 19 Jan 2009

I recently saw Harold and Maude at a Quasi-neo-fringe Video screening at a small theatre on Commercial Drive. It attracted a host of slightly underaged scruffy-faced scenester boyfriends along with their monroe-pierced chain-smoking girlfriends-- when they weren't making out in front of the lit movie posters outside, they all seemed to be drinking over-priced local wine out of disposable plastic champagne cups.

Did all the hip downtown clubs that 'ironically' play 1950's doowop music suddenly close down and switch locations? I guess so, either that or Harold and Maude has found a new audience as eager to define itself as the anti-hero of the film.

Harold is the precursoral Wes Anderson protagonist-- young, rich, and nihilistic-- who fakes his own death in a feeble attempt to be acknowledged by his unfeeling socialite mother. His interest in funerals leads to an encounter with Maude.

She is considerably older but is also paradoxically younger at heart. They steal cars together, rescue public trees from the city, they have picnics at dump sites...etc. Life affirming quirky film. Yes.

That's what it is. I was reminded of films such as the Graduate but also of more recent ones--Igby goes Down, The Squid and the Whale, Rushmore or any subsequent Andersons. It appeases the insatiably romantic and teases the emotionally-stunted teenager in us all-- well, maybe not all.

It seems written by and for a specific age group too inexperienced to delve into the complexities of mature relationships-- themes often tackled with ferocity by Woody Allen or (yes you knew it was coming) Ingmar Bergman.

We rarely see the give and take In Harold and Maude, it's too naive for that. The ending feels inauthentic but appropriately written to perpetuate the passion and romance its 20-something-year old audience yearns for.

I am reminded of a quote in Catcher in the Rye (a book I'm pretty sure was seen peaking out of the backpocket of one of our slightly under-aged scruffy-faced friends), "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

".