2024 the best intentions film review
Price: $19.99
(as of Dec 19, 2024 17:55:07 UTC - Details)
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
Package Dimensions : 7.32 x 4.19 x 1.12 inches; 6.13 ounces
Director : Bille August
Run time : 3 hours and 2 minutes
Release date : March 25, 1997
Date First Available : December 29, 2006
Actors : Samuel Fröler, Pernilla August, Max von Sydow, Ghita Nørby, Lennart Hjulström
Subtitles: : English
Studio : Gaiam Americas, Inc
Producers : Ingrid Dahlberg
ASIN : 6304385471
Writers : Ingmar Bergman
Reviewer: Catherine Bridge
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: This is a movie about Ingmar Bergman's Parents
Review: If anyone is not familiar with Ingmar Bergman..know this he is considered the 8th best director in history. He has a very real and controversial background and family life. This movie is very deep about relationships between class society.
Reviewer: SD787
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An Intriguing Case Study into Complex Coupling
Review: They don't make many movies like this. But I am thankful we get one ever so often. This story resonates inso many ways. And the beautiful cold is felt in your bones as you watch the unfolding of the complexities of marriage between two people of such contrasting social class and upbringing. Wonderfully filmed, acted, and paced.
Reviewer: Chris Kuykendall
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fine print shows that it's a DVD-R
Review: The Film Four DVD I have says that the running time is approximately 181.0 minutes, the same as the Amazon description. Fine print shows that it's a DVD-R. My main combo DVD/VHS unit connected to my TV is broken on the DVD side, but the DVD-R plays on both a standard U.S. portable DVD player and Windows 7 on my computer, and the quality is excellent and the English subtitles good. There is no set-up, just the PLAY button, but the DVD-R is divided into 35 chapters that can be moved through by a forward > button on the portable DVD player but can't be moved through or skipped over on Windows 7 as far as I can figure out. The first 34 chapters are each 5 minutes long, thus a total of 170 minutes, and then on the 35th chapter, the closing credits start shortly after the 171st minute. A drawback is a copyright warning on the reverse bottom, "NOT FOR RENTAL." Lending is among what's prohibited. So if that prohibition were honored, it's not something that, if there were more copies available, a rental store or Netflix could acquire and rent to customers. Some of the best Swedish movies have been unavailable on U.S. commercial DVD, and need to be available, because even the VHS copies of them are getting scarcer and few Americans have VCRs anymore. A positive sign is that The Emigrants (Sweden, 1971) is supposed to be released on U.S. commercial DVD in February 2016. Perhaps this will be followed by, say, U.S. commercial DVDs for The Flight of the Eagle (Sweden, 1982), The Best Intentions (Sweden, 1992), and maybe others. I'm awarding four stars because the movie is five stars, and what I have is four or five stars in quality depending on whether it matches the original theatrical movie release (an issue on which I'm unclear), but the Film Four release is DVD-R, it's now rare and expensive, and it has the rental prohibition.
Reviewer: Sky Master
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Stunning film
Review: This is the remarkable and haunting story of Igmar Bergman's parent's marriage near the turn of the century in Sweeden. The acting, photography, lighting, and dialog is in the Bergman style although the film was not directed by him. An abolute must for introspective and thoiughtful movie fans.
Reviewer: SaguaroGeorge
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great production values, but too sad
Review: The scenery is gorgeous, the camera work among the best I have ever seen. The interior decoration is brilliant. The acting is fine, as is the costuming for both men and women. The music is nonintrusive. So why only 3 stars? Because there isnât a single happy person in the film. I know Swedes have a reputation for being morose, but this is taking it too far. As for the pastor, Ingmarâs father, I cannot see how anybody would want him for a friend, much less a husband. Morose, indeed, but also self-centered to the point of barely caring at all about anyone else, including his wife, Ingmarâs mother. And for a pastor, he seems remarkably lacking in the spirit of forgiveness, of redemption; he is unable to forgive anyone who was unkind to him or to his mother. I have seen more than half of this film and, at least at this moment, I have no desire to see any more of it, lest I become as sad as everyone in the film.
Reviewer: Mark Haxthausen
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: and why Pernilla August won the award at the festival for best actress. The screenplay
Review: I saw this film over twenty years ago on VHS. Watching it again I can understand why it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and why Pernilla August won the award at the festival for best actress. The screenplay, by Ingmar Bergman, must have been an intense one to write, given that the subjects were his own parents in their life before his birth. A beautiful film in every way.
Reviewer: Shelley E. Scruggs
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: DVD-R Technology doesn't work!
Review: The Best Intentions is a wonderful film, and I have been looking forward to getting it on DVD since I discovered that it had come out in Region 2 format last year. (I purchased the VHS some years ago.) Unfortunately the DVD-R transfer technology on which it is offered in the U.S. does not work in my DVD player or my laptop. The DVD menu only offers one choice, "play", but after the first part is finished it returns to the menu but doesn't play parts 2-4, and there is no way to access them! I complained about this to Amazon and they very quickly shipped me a replacement but I had the exact same problem. The other parts of the movie are definitely on the DVD. It is possible to see them when looking at the DVD-R in "My Computer" as a set of files, but they cannot be accessed by any video player. So as far as I'm concerned this wonderful film has not come out on DVD yet (at least for the U.S. in Region 1). Amazon should NOT offer any product that cannot be used!
Reviewer: Basem Kandah
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Love, Suspense, Drama, Adventure
Review: This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It's a bit long, but worth the wait. The scariest part is when the visiting boy takes the baby to the river and almost throws the baby in. Very intricate story. See it, you'll like it.
Reviewer: Mathieu Belzile
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Loisirs
Reviewer: Tim Kidner
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: It must be obvious to someone at Amazon by now that reviews for this Bille August period drama is mixed up along with an Ealing film from much earlier. This not only (& obviously) confuses those not sure what they're looking for but distorts the overall star ratings, at a glance.Otherwise, to the reviewer who slashed the rating by half because it was not the right version - if a TV mini-series is released theatrically and a DVD made from that, it is of no fault of anyone other than that no-one has ventured into releasing the mini-series, as they obviously would - and have, in its native Sweden. This is the theatrical release and should be judged as such, so in effect that person has reviewed the wrong product.Then, to the one who experienced, it seems, some pretty annoying technical glitches - this DVD that I bought from Amazon (verified purchase) both loads and plays perfectly and the subtitles are always there and correct, displaying Bergman's superbly deatiled and nuanced but still very natural dialogue.It is this very honesty and its intelligence that I find so beguiling and compulsive about the now, late Ingmar Bergman, this being the life-story of his parents. Sounds great, doesn't it? Like the vast majority I was veered toward the Great Swede director via The Seventh Seal and it surprises me still, that not only did I find time for all his lesser, more ordinary and sometimes rather depressing films, I was after everything he made and associated with. The only other three directors I have vowed to do this for are/were Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilder.'Normal' period drama i.e. British, probably because it's so commonplace and accepted and even pushed upon us - if we didn't watch Downton Abbey on TV, we felt almost chastised! doesn't move me much, possibly because by now, most of the popular novels and adaptations have been re-done so many times. However, I find it rather calming and enjoyable to look through the eyes of 19th C Swedish middle-class family life and as such, Bille August's direction and period detail is never less than 100% convincing.The picture quality of the DVD is excellent, subtle yet full of life and texture. The ratio fills a standard widescreen format, so you get all of the picture. Compared to the rather poor transfer I have of Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage, this is near perfect. The score is simple yet sympathetic, too.Bergman stalwart Max von Sydow is perfect as the grandfather and Permilla August (the director's wife) as Anna Bergman, to be Ingmar's mother. In some ways it helps to know of - and appreciate - the genius, yes, genius, that the couple went onto bear, but not essentially so as the story of young love but disapproving parents and society is a such a universal one that in fact it can be enjoyed by everyone.Lastly, whilst I'm not complaining, my DVD is clearly marked as a 'PG' yet there is female topless nudity and subsequent mild sex scenes that's quite prevalent, especially near the start. Whilst children are very unlikely to watch this, especially alone, parents should know of this and whilst '15' is possibly too strong, especially for a more relaxed European film, a '12' would be more appropriate.
Reviewer: Monica
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is very slow. However, the slowness matches the story, somehow. Honest look at a marriage and the brutality in real people. A star lost because I can't imagine watching it again. But who knows.Worth a look.
Reviewer: Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Park Circus are to be commended for bringing this masterful film to DVD for the first time, but there are problems with their DVD version which need to be addressed. The main menu is hesitant and clunky; the enabling tabs are elusive and often don't appear - you sometimes just have to press 'go' and hope. The subtitles are often hard to engage, and have to be chased. But far and away the worst flaw occurs near the beginning, in the second scene - the scene immediately after the opening titles. It's a particularly tender and important scene, showing the love Anna has for her ageing father (Pernilla August and Max Von Sydow). In the middle of the scene there is a gap - the action skips and there is a loss of fifteen or twenty seconds of dialogue. I know the film well from its existence on VHS. It's too crude to be an attempt at an edit. It must be dropout or a problem during transfer. Park Circus should re-issue the disc. I returned the first disc, but Amazon's prompt replacement exhibited the same issues.That said, it is so good to have this movie on DVD at last, even with these niggling problems. The version is handsome, the colour saturation superb and the sound excellent.The thing is simply a masterpiece. The cast are a magnificent ensemble. The mood is sombre, the script truthful - so truthful indeed that at times it is hard to watch. Bergman wrote the script; Bille August directs with great authority and restraint. A special word of praise must be said for the soundtrack, especially the solo piano sections, which will haunt you long after the end credits have rolled.A superb story of love, marriage, and the mysterious difficulty of making them go together like a turn-of-the-century horse and carriage.
Reviewer: Marc van Buurt
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I'm very pleased with this DVD. The film is qualitatively good and so is de DVD. For those who are interested in the films of Ingmar Bergman this is a nice supplement for their collection (although directed by Bille August). As a Dutchman I am happy with the English subtitles.