Synopsis
A family in their summer house in the Stockholm archipelago. The two daughters fantasize they are adults, representing different colors - red, yellow, blue, green, violet, black and indigo.
The Moon Is a Green Cheese
1977 ‘Månen är en grön ost’ Directed by Mai Zetterling
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Theatrical
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Sweden
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Sweden
10 Mar 1977
- Theatrical
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such a great hidden gem if you like weird fever dreamish poetic experimental movies with stunning and interesting cinematography that portray the wild and beautiful minds of children. which i do
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”You CAN’T see God through a microscope”
I love Mai Zetterling but I didn’t love this. ”The Moon Is a Green Cheese” comes across like a compilation of rejected ”Magical Mystery Tour” outtakes. Case in point: there’s a scene in which two clowns cover each other in spaghetti (and ketchup). Firstly, I really dislike clowns. Secondly, that scene goes on forever and ever and ever.
I’m not sure what type of audience Zetterling had in mind when she made this. I assume it’s a film for children, but somehow I doubt children would enjoy this. There’s no plot to speak of: two kids wander about and meet, or rather ”experience”, odd people. It’s like a hazy LSD daydream version of…
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A Mai Zetterling kids film. Let that one sink in for a moment. A family are lent a summer home for a week and the kids daydream about the people they've seen in regards to the colours of a rainbow. That's pretty much the whole film. It's fantastic!
So gorgeously of it's time - those lush, lush colours that only a 70s film provides. The soundtrack and camera trickery suggest a psychedelic extravaganza and it doesn't let up on that. Um, did I mention the lush, lush colours? It makes me feel that this could've been the kind of weird kids movie I could've watched had I known about this film when I was younger.
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Månen är en grön ost (The Moon Is a Green Cheese) is a peculiar picture. What starts as a naturalistic drama in the archipelago of Stockholm is quickly melting down into a psychedelic, dadaistic pallet of colors and imagination. Mai Zetterling doesn’t hold back on the surrealistic imagery, veering into litteral clownery as the film is drenched in colors and circus as two clowns stuff each other with spaghetti in quite the unsettling way. It’s odd and aesthetically flashy, but I struggled to find it very engaging, especially taking up so much of the runtime.
See, Månen är en grön ost is such a short film and there’s barely a hint of something to anchor the characters in between the visually twisted visions of fantasy. So while it’s certainly imaginative, I personally found too little stuffing to make any kind of themes or emotions out of the cacophony of visual madness that is Zetterling’s film.
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Some very dreamlike and psychedelic imagery when steering away from the laid-back naturalistic drama, which they did for most of the runtime, meaning there wasn't much of an opportunity to flesh out the main family beyond having them essentially monologue to themselves.
At times even bordered on being culturally insensitive, but mainly just came across like they used whatever nonsense that would stick to the wall and called it children's content. Like a more artsy way of dangling keys.
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Skit viktigt att se om man vill lära sig färgerna och sen kasta sin hjärna i soptunnan
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So beautiful but so formless, this whimsical exploration of colour, humour, music,is probably intended for children. Lucky children. To be honest, it will dazzle and confound most children and certainly most adults. You have to go with the flow though: it’s disconcertingly gorgeous and luxuriates in its own oddness.
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a deep nordic weirdness permeates throughout, rotting it. but there's some v cool v beautiful shots & sequences after the blue segment -- forest witches, river women, lake mermaids, etc. it's mostly the racism in the blue & yellow segments that sour it -- red clowns obsessed w spaghetti & ketchup // yellow sunshine twins obsessed w china or wtvr i wasn't rly paying attention at risk of getting too annoyed & combusting. nonetheless mais visuals r pretty, & despite the childish fever dream surrealism that wasn't for me this was nice. saw it set to softscars because i had to see this now & i wasn't gonna delay listening to a new yeule album ! & it made it much better, more tolerable. this backdrop isn't actually from here, according to google it's from seppan.
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Månen är en grön ost/The Moon Is a Green Cheese
(1977) Sweden colour 68m.
Directed by Mai Zetterling.Natural magic and beauty for children shown in a psychedelic, kaleidoscopic haze. Dizzying and perplexing, while mesmerizing.
Very typical of its time and place: 1970's Sweden.
Ewa Fröling's second appearance in cinema.A strange watch.
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This was meant to be the easy watch of my festival! Not the weirdest shit I've ever seen with twenty minutes of clowns rubbing each other with spaghetti! Bizarre fetish fuel for SOMEONE