Suicide Made Funny

Harold and Maude is dark comedy directed by Hal Ashby. The first ten minutes you have to wonder what am I watching. As I watch a kid getting ready to hang himself, I was thinking wow this movie gets depressing fast, not knowing it was a comedy. Than the kid's mother walks in and act as though nothing out of the ordinary and that is how we are introduced to the main character Harold. A rich, young man, who fakes suicides trying to get a loving emotion from his mother. Harold meets an older woman who tries to live life to fullest, and lives her own set of rules.  Maude teaches Harold about love and finding happiness in life. I thought the acting and dialogue was great. I love Bud Cort’s ability to be serious when trying to commit suicide but making light hearted where you able to get a laugh from it and not feel sad. The dialogue between Harold and Maude was simple but meaningful. Some movies try to push long, metaphorical dialogue and you lose when the character is saying. Simplicity is always better to me. The one problem I had with the movie is the constant repetition of Cat Stevens’ If You want To Sing, Sing Out. I enjoyed when Maude was singing it, and at the end. But  all those time in between kind of got overwhelming. It was just slapping the theme of the movie in your face over and over again. What I felt most interesting about this movie was the social appetence of this movie. When it was first came out people did not find the suicide jokes funny. Though listening to my classmates laugh as Harold plays a dead float in the pool, what does it say about our generation. Have people become use to laughing at dark situations of real life, or do you we laugh because we are uncomfortable and unsure of how we should respond to it. Why do we laugh at the actions of a somewhat depressed kind? I do not the answer but it just an interesting reaction I got from watching this movie.