Memorable for a lifetime There is so much delightful/bizarre/provocative poignant innuendo in this movie. I saw it for the first time 30 years ago. Of all the movies I have seen this one stands out. It intertwines the human element with comedy. You really must pay attention or you will miss the subtleties. A must see, think, reflect and laugh!
Quirky Black Comedy Bergman Satire Dusan Makavejev's Montenegro is not you typical film. In fact, it is one of the strangest films that I've come across in quite awhile. This is not to say that its not a good film. It may even be a great film.
The story follows Marilyn Jordon (Susan Anspach) over several days leading up to New Years in Sweden. Marilyn is a bored housewife who seemingly has it all but is going slowly insane. Married to Bergman regular Erland Josephson she is the victim of a loveless marriage and a very stratified social circle.
One holiday season she is detained at the airport while on her way to join her husband on a business trip and falls in with a group of Yugoslavian immigrants led by Alex Rossignol (Bora Todorovic) and her already shaky life begins to truly unravel.
The immigrants are everything she is not. They are lustful (horny would probably be a better description) and fun loving. They run an earthy night club called the Zanzibar where just about anything can happen. Marilyn begins to experience life again with a lover, a zoo-keeper named Montenegro (Svetozar Cvetkovic). The problem is that this life can't go on forever and she must return to her family with some outrageous results.
This is black comedy at its finest. It is a pointed satire of Bergman's work that even includes some familiar Bergman faces. The disc is out of print now but with some looking can be easily found. The Fox Lorber transfer is adequate despite some rather severe letterboxing. Look for a fine performance by Anspach and a dance by unknown Patricia Gelin with a tank that makes the whole quirky movie worthwhile.
See it if you can.
Bergman meets Bunuel I went to see this movie on Christmas night of 1981, not knowing what to expect. Few movies can thrill on first viewing the way this one did--I think of "Law of Desire" as one such movie and it is also dark, erotic and as visually stunning as Montenegro. What struck me was the Bergman beginning and the Bunuel/Almodovar end. The movie begins in the sterile (and of course Scandanavian) background of Bergman. Clean, sterile and boring except for Susan Anspach's constant fondling of her luxurious fur coat. Then, with the sudden appearance of a black taxi driver in the white background of Sweden, one is driven to an incredible,almost unbelievable compound of gypsies who live amorally and happily--if not hysterically--in Zanzibar. Here Montenegro appears, who was first seen in the Bergman portion working in a zoo. So now, is this a dream or is it live--and where did the detour begin? Ask yourself that when you think over the film--and you will think it over many times. The dream like sequence is pure Bunuel--or even Almadovar as his wittiest, and complete with some of the most beautiful nudity and sex ever captured on screen. The movie returns to Bergman, somewhere along the way--or does it? Are we still dreaming at the end? Even though the story is based on a true event, this interpretation of the real-life story is the only way to escape such a sad conclusion. This is the flip-side of the film "Star 80" in which Fosse grabbed us by the neck and shoved our faces into the true results of a gruesome murder, which is usually so clean and tidy in other films. In Montenegro, even without knowing the details of the true story, we approach the nightmare and its antecedents and we can only imagine that we too are dreaming until we awaken. This film, like "Law of Desire" is lush to look at, seductive to watch and will be very difficult to remove, if ever, from your memory. Enjoy without guilt.
An exercise in postmodernism I really don't like doing the whole, "Not many people will understand this," vein, but this movie really isn't for everybody. I personally got so much from it from my first viewing, and yet I got the strange feeling that no one else in the theatre I was in really quite "got it", so to speak. A lot of them laughed heartily, but they seemed to laugh at the apparent "randomness" of it, but none of it was random at all. This is a very precise and firmly crafted piece of postmodern art.
First of all, the climax is somewhat in the beginning when she says "I hate being in this movie!" and the very beginning is really the last shot. A lot of situations that incited laughter only did so after the punchline had already been given moments beforehand. A lot of this film is circuitous and self-reflexive, and everything breaks down so that any given meaning something may have eventually undermines itself later. The thing that's excellent about it is how precise and organized it is at breaking everything down into structureless structure. The acting is great but unnecessary because the characters just say what they're thinking/feeling/etc. The story is of a bourgeois woman who falls in love with a man from a lower class and lives happily ever after... only not really. Montenegro is a character only he's one of the most incidental and least important. The children are the caretakers. The adults are the adolescents. And so on...
This film gets a lot of laughs from its irony, but mostly it's a very tense film to try to watch, and I would have MUCH preferred watching it in private so that I wouldn't feel the tension mounting in the auditorium as people literally strained to try to make sense of it. So by all means, believe my intentions are good when I say this film is not for everybody.
--PolarisDiB
An inspired work/performance It's too bad Susan Anspach never became an international star. Her performance here is rich and detailed and full of subtlety. Many do not realize that this movie was based on a real life ex-Patriot wife who did poison her european family after being so fed up with her life and her uninvolved husband. There is some raw eroticism here (that was typical of the edgier filmmaking of the time) but it is surely not pornographic. The comedic situations in the film are dark and dry. I first watched it when it was in theatres and went back twice. I've watched it again through the years, and it still holds up. Mid-life crisis or not, I think anyone can relate to wanting to not just live life, but to feel it full force. The soundtrack includes the wonderful "Ballad of Lucy Jordan," by Marianne Faithful.
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