| July 26, 2003 - Afternoon of jokes |
| Dear Friends, one afternoon in Sweden while I was doing my homework, I thought I'd watch a little television. Although I can read fairly well, I have a hard time understanding spoken Swedish so I thought this would help me improve. When I turned on the TV, I knew I was in for a treat linguistically and culturally. Apparently, I had turned on some sort of Director's Cut, because there was an old man sitting there pontificating about something while the person interviewing him pretended to be interested in what he had to say. Then a black and white film began. "Oh my," I thought. "I bet this is an Ingmar Bergman film where people have all sorts of angst over what it means to be human and Swedish at the same time." The film, Dear Friends, was called "Afternoon of Jokes" and it made "Smilla's Sense of Snow" seem tame in comparison. The film was set in the late 18th century and dealt with a travelling circus. The circus folk all lived in wheeled wagons like gypsy wagons and they held their circus in some of the oddest places. In the opening scene they were just cavorting around on the edge of a cliff while spectators sat on the rocks and laughed at them. I think the ringmaster was telling jokes, too, but I wasn't certain. Anyway, they come to a little town and somehow or other the ringmaster's wife develops a crush on one of the townsmen. She goes to his house where he attempts to have sex with her, but she pushes him off and says something in Swedish while crying, which I took to mean that she couldn't go through with it. Unbeknownst to her, the ringmaster had come into town and happened to see her leaving this man's house. Of course, he assumes she's having an affair, but he doesn't bring it up to her although he's clearly torn. So then the day of the circus comes up and it's opened under the big top by the ringmaster who introduces his wife. She comes out on a horse and rides around the ring sidesaddle. All the townsfolk clap and cheer like mad, but all she's doing is trotting in a circle. She's not doing anything spectacular, like standing on her hands on the saddle, at all. But there they all are, clapping and cheering as though they'd never seen anyone riding a horse before! So as she's doing her unimpressive stunt riding, these two ne'er-do-wells throw something at the horse. The horse bucks and throws the ringmaster's wife. Everyone starts laughing at her, but the one who's laughing hardest is the man who tried to get her in the sack. The ringmaster is furious and takes his whip and cracks it at the man, knocking his hat off. The man puts his hat back on and the ringmaster cracks it off again. This repeats itself a few times until a huge fistfight erupts between the two of them. The ringmaster is thoroughly trounced and everyone laughs at him as his wife rushes to comfort him. After that he can barely show his face to his fellow carnies, because he feels so humiliated. Later that night, he's sitting in his wagon holding a gun to his head. He's all trembly and sweaty because he's afraid to kill himself, but the family cat sitting on the bed seems to get a real hoot out of it. You never saw a more hostile looking creature. We look from the man to the cat, from the cat to the man, etc. At one point the cat's eyes are large as saucers in concern that the ringmaster is going to shoot it. Then it's ears are laid back as though daring him to just go ahead and get it over with. Suddenly, the ringmaster jumps up and rushes out of his wagon. As some female troop member clutches at him crying, he runs to the animal cages and shoots the dancing bear. Yep, you read it right. He shoots the dancing bear and the film ends. The first thought in my mind was, "What the *expletive*?" I'll bet that's what's running through your heads, too, Dear Readers. Am I right? Next entry Previous entry Go to diary entries Go back home |