Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 78: Thu Mar 19

Taking Off (Forman, 1971): Close-Up Cinema, 8.15pm

Time Out review:
A delightfully touching comedy, Milos Forman's first in America and far better than his later One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Ragtime, this deals with the attempts of a middle-aged, middle class American couple to trace and lure back their runaway daughter. Scenes of their search are intercut with sequences at a musical audition for disillusioned youth, and Forman's wry but sympathetic humour derives largely from the incongruities he observes in both situations: deserted parents, concerned and conservative, getting stoned in an effort to understand why kids smoke dope; a rosy, virginal young girl singing a quiet folk song in praise of fucking. Never taking sides, but allowing both factions engaged in the generation gap war plenty of space and generosity, its gentle wit has aged far more gracefully than the hectoring sermons of most youth movies churned out in the late '60s and early '70s.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

No comments: