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magicinaframe-part2 · 10 months ago

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In Search Of A Positive Movie Experience

Try to imagine, if you will, that you -- you who are reading my words -- are the general manager of a television station, somewhere in the U.S., and you are looking for programming -- content -- to include in the station's upcoming schedule. You look at the news on-line and on one of your station's many monitors and you say to yourself "Is there anything positive that I can put on the air?" And you, then, have no problem finding two free hours in the upcoming week on the calendar.

Right now, I'd like to think that there actually are general managers at television stations throughout the U.S. who are dealing with this question.

"What can I put in those two free hours? An infomercial? Don't we have plenty of infomercials, already? How about a movie..."

What kind of movie should the hypothetical television station general manager pick?

Most people, here, at Tumblr -- I'm guessing -- would say "Oh, a feel-good movie!" And that implies that most people at this website agree as to what a feel-good movie is.

I hope that what I just wrote is reality. I really do.

Amongst staff members at a television station, there would be agreement as to what makes a feel-good movie a feel-good movie. And at Tumblr...?

In my not-so-humble opinion, random television stations throughout the U.S. should schedule a feel-good movie, once every seven days.

Now, since many television viewers often do not check to see what's scheduled on any given day, it's possible that someone, here, at Tumblr, might go from channel to channel with their remote control device and suddenly wind up watching a movie, a movie that they don't recognize...

A squad of soldiers in the Swedish Army are being trained in firing machine guns at targets in a rural area. After each round is fired, there's a good-looking soldier who lowers and raises the targets and keeps the scores. Out of nowhere, a white-colored puppy dog appears on the slope behind the targets. The good-looking soldier tries to gather the puppy into his arms, just as the next group of machine gunners open up. One of the bullets grazes him on the side of his head and he collapses onto the ground.

What immediately starts up is an imaginative sequence that shows the good-looking soldier's response to the shock to his head. Accompanied by music and sound effects, the sequence lasts about a minute.

The good-looking soldier comes back to consciousness, his forehead wrapped in gauze, in a hospital bed. How much time has passed?

"I'm not dead," he says to himself, a number of times.

Besides a Nurse, there's a young woman standing at his side, by the bed. She knows him. Could they be family members?

"Why aren't the blinds raised?" he asks, and he, then, sits up. Slowly, he takes his right hand and passes it back and forth in front of his face. He's blind. Emotional music, played by an orchestra, starts up. The scene switches to a long shot, as he lies back down in bed. He's alive, he's conscious, and he's blind.

The good-looking soldier is named Bengt Vyldeke and he becomes one of the main characters of a contemporary drama called MUSIC IN DARKNESS (org'l title: MUSIK I MORKER) that debuted in Sweden on January 17, 1948 (information courtesy of the Internet Movie database).

The main thread of MUSIC IN DARKNESS focuses on how Bengt deals with his blindness. A second main thread deals with his relationship with a young neighbor named Ingrid Olofsson. At first, she is invited by Bengt's relatives to stay and help take care of him, during his recuperation. Quickly, a relationship starts to take shape. But the reality of life in Sweden in the 1940s is complicated. Ingrid's social position is lower than Bengt's; she's from a farming family. And Bengt must find a way to work. He needs to find employment.

Can Bengt become self-sufficient? Can he find a life partner?

The one piece of the plot that keeps the characters Bengt and Ingrid searching for each other is music. Ingrid is introduced fairly early in the course of the movie's 87-minute running time. Her father recently died and the funeral service will soon take place. But there's no organist. Mrs. Schroder, Bengt's relative, prods him to play the organ in the Church.

It so happens that Bengt's choice of music for the service is a piece of classical music that I had not heard in at least 30 years and I was moved to tears.

For the remainder of the movie, there are upwards of 20 musical compositions as part of the plot.

Music becomes a kind of emotional and intellectual magnet that helps the two characters stay interested in each other.

At a crucial moment, Ingrid is shown dancing with her current boyfriend at a graduation party and she imagines that Bengt's in trouble. She rushes out of the party to search for him.

So...without any more details, does that sound like a feel-good movie?

MUSIC IN DARKNESS played in theaters in the U.S. in the early 1960s, more than 10 years after its debut in Sweden.

If anything that I've written sounds interesting, MUSIC IN DARKNESS is available on DVD with English subtitles.

-- Drew Simels

#Feel-Good Movies

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letterboxd-loggd · 3 years ago

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