LIFE and DEATH

At first glance this movie was not what I expected. Like all of the other comedies we have seen jokes were “in your face jokes.” This was not Harold and Maude’s style. The beginning of the movie took me for a turn. The start of the movie played on the audience’s ignorance of the character Harold. We start of not seeing Harold’s face. I feel this was a very important element. This element gives us no way of judging that he was a kid, or a nerd, or obsessed with death. The first time we see his face is when it was lite by the match. The fire of the match is symbolic of something that humans cannot control and creates a parallel affect with the symbol of death. Harold likes the fire because it is mysterious and comforting at the same time. He gets the same affect with death.

Now Harold’s mother is an interesting character for many reasons. The first thing I want to mention is that I don’t blame her for the way she acts. She was probably raised in a rich environment. The environment has a tendency to lead to a snotty attitude. I also want to state that I think she wants what’s best for her son or at least what she thinks is best.  When she was filling out Harold’s personality form she would ask him for an answer but give the answer everyone wanted to hear. This is very reflective of society. For example, when you walk around campus and you see someone you know. What happens? You say Hey, how are you? 99% of the time you will hear back “Good, how are you.” Society has trained us to be fine and dandy all the time, even when there are serious problems in our life. Harold, in my opinion, has found out that little problem and in his own way rebelled from it.

Now this is where Maude comes in. She is like Harold in the fact that she, in her on way, has rebelled against society. She loves life all around her and plays on the fact that people hold on to their own little world. For example she loves to steal people cars. This is a bad habit to have kids so don’t do it. I believe the only she can get away with it is because she does not steal the cars for profit. She only use the vehicles to achieve an objective.

The last couple of things I want to mention are the metaphors in this film. The movie was filled with them to the brim. The first is in the beginning of the movie when Harold’s mother is swimming by drowned Harold. She did not know or even care what he was up too. This was a metaphor for the way people move past Harold without really noticing him. The second is Harold and Maude themselves. I feel each one represents life and death and how they are so different but in some way comingle.