A Limousine The Colour Of Midsummer Eve - Searching For Comedy
Thoughts On: A Limousine The Colour Of Midsummer Eve (Limuzīns Jāņu Nakts Krāsā, 1981)
Made by Jānis Streičs, this is the Latvian film of the series.
A Limousin The Colour Of Midsummer Eve is considered to be one of the best Latvian films ever made. It is an ironic familial comedy about estranged family members converging at an elderly aunt's house after she wins the lottery. All wish to receive the aunt's new car after she dies. The narrative contrasts many worlds within the family - upper, lower classes, city and countryside dwellers, men and women, young and old, lonely and aspirational. It is from these clashings of character and theme that comedy is to emerge. However, this is where the film lost me. Edited rather chaotically, A Limousine The Colour Of Midsummer Eve seems to be working under logic that I could not at all follow; the point of each scene, the montage, the juxtaposition, the sound design, all jarring and abrupt to me. Unfortunately, all the irony that is clearly weaved into the narrative went over my head entirely, leaving some seemingly paedophilic strands of the plot more than disquieting. Such, I feel, is a risk of watching comedies in a foreign language. Whilst one can always expect to not fully get the nuances of a comedy in a language foreign to their own, for me, A Limousin The Colour Of Midsummer Eve represents an extreme case. I struggled to understand the comedy formally, thematically, dramatically and characterlogically--not just linguistically. And such left me rather bewildered - even slightly downhearted; as though I bought a highly acclaimed film that does not have subtitles
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A Limousin The Colour Of Midsummer Eve is considered to be one of the best Latvian films ever made. It is an ironic familial comedy about estranged family members converging at an elderly aunt's house after she wins the lottery. All wish to receive the aunt's new car after she dies. The narrative contrasts many worlds within the family - upper, lower classes, city and countryside dwellers, men and women, young and old, lonely and aspirational. It is from these clashings of character and theme that comedy is to emerge. However, this is where the film lost me. Edited rather chaotically, A Limousine The Colour Of Midsummer Eve seems to be working under logic that I could not at all follow; the point of each scene, the montage, the juxtaposition, the sound design, all jarring and abrupt to me. Unfortunately, all the irony that is clearly weaved into the narrative went over my head entirely, leaving some seemingly paedophilic strands of the plot more than disquieting. Such, I feel, is a risk of watching comedies in a foreign language. Whilst one can always expect to not fully get the nuances of a comedy in a language foreign to their own, for me, A Limousin The Colour Of Midsummer Eve represents an extreme case. I struggled to understand the comedy formally, thematically, dramatically and characterlogically--not just linguistically. And such left me rather bewildered - even slightly downhearted; as though I bought a highly acclaimed film that does not have subtitles
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Previous post:
The Ontology Of The Photographic Image - Realism
Next post:
End Of The Week Shorts #80
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
