Marilyn Jordan, an American, lives in Stockholm with her Swedish husband and family. Her behavior is bizarre, perhaps mad: she poisons the dog's milk and advises the dog not to drink it; she sets the sheets afire as her husband sleeps; she crawls under the dining table to sing. While detained at airport customs for carrying pruning shears, she meets a young Yugoslav woman and goes with her to a Gypsy enclave where she's fought over, takes a lover, helps with the sordid entertainment at a bar, and returns home more dangerous than before. The film also tells parallel stories of Marilyn's daughter becoming a junior homemaker as the young immigrant practices her striptease.
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From the director of Sweet Movie and The Coca-Cola Kid, this English-language film is very reminiscent of the latter (which was made four years later). It's just a very odd, quirky comedy. It also contains bits of blistering, hilarious eroticism. It's hard to make eroticism humorous. The film's most memorable bit involves an exotic dancer dodging a remote-control tank armed with a dildo. The story involves a wife (Susan Anspach) who tries to catch up with her husband (Erland Josephson, RIP) as he boards a flight. Unfortunately, she packed garden shears, which gets her taken to a small, back room for searching. There she meets up with a Yugoslavian immigrant, with whom she attempts to catch a ride home. They get sidetracked, though, to a settlement of other Yugoslavian immigrants, where her adventure begins. Meanwhile, Josephson returns home, not knowing what happened to his wife. The film is very airy and enjoyable. It doesn't equal out to much at the end. I'd rank it a ways below The Coca-Cola Kid, but it's well worth checking out.
An interesting enough film to watch, it is very unusual, yet it is not really satisfying stuff. There are some rather intense bits, especially one of the dance acts in the bar, but it seems to go off on tangents, with a limited sense of linear storytelling, kind of as if it had just been written only as it went along. There is a great song, sung by Marianne Faithful, which is added into the mix very well, but the mix is awfully hard to make sense of, and it is even difficult to tell if the film is trying to be a comedy or a drama. I am actually fully uncertain of what to make of this film - whether it is good or whether it is bad. All I can say is that it is interesting as something very different, but somehow not quite satisfying after the end credits have finished rolling.
it's a wonderful black comedy i have recently seen.the entire cast, direction are absolutely brilliant.especially, i want to mention characters named "marylin", "montenegro", maryline's son and daughter. their acting are really good to me.special scenes which i like in this movies are when marylin sings under the cuburd at her kitchen, she mixed poisons in her dog's milk,the airport scenes, the shower scene of montenegro and marylin, and the arrival of marylin to her family.especially, i think characters named "marylin" and "montenegro" are nicely depicted in this movie.the bizarre, facial, slight abnormal expressions of maryline are quite brilliant and absolutely i like the character montenegro with his charming face and beautiful personality.well, it's not the movie for everyone but obviously it's a worth-watching movie.i rate this movie 8 out of 10.
I remember seeing this film as a young guy at a film festival when it was first released knowing little about it's content of its directors past. The advertising poster led people to believe it may be some sort of eastern European soft core porn but how mistaken we all were once the reels started rolling. With Marianne Faithful singing her signature "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" tune, I just knew that the premise of this song was somehow linked to this movie. I won't bore you with the synopsis of this film as others have already done this, what I will tell you is this is probably one of the most cleverly made movies I have seen in years. All sorts of social commentaries can be concluded about this movie, but having owned a copy of the film and viewing it on numerous occasions, each screening presents a different interpretation. What still blows me away is the closing scene of the movie, even after all this time and myself and friends have sat around a dinner table discussing what does it "really all mean". Each glass of Merlot presented even more outrageous takes like the movie itself. 10/10 to Susan Anspach, director Dusan and hats off to the two young support players who play Susans children, the talent is all class. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie for the wild ride that it is, even just to experience the wonderful unpredictable ending......I'd love to know what you all think.