OMG Movie Club

Can you even imagine the pitch? It's a story about a 19 yr old who is obsessed with who falls in love with a 79 yr woman? It's comedy with fake suicides. It's a political statement. It's a love story. It's Harold and Maude.

Harold and Maude is the cult classic film directed by Hal Ashby in 1971. Filled with slapstick, dark humour, and existentialist drama it revolves around Harold (played by Bud Cort), who's obsessed with death, and begins pulls away from the life that his detached mother prescribes for him, as he finds septuagenarian Maude (played by Ruth Gordon).

One of Ashby's themes was to contrast the doomed outlook of alienated youth of the Vietnam era with the hard-won optimism of the Greatest Generation. Nihilism vs Purpose. What makes Harold & Maude classic, is that the same can be said about today, the theme is relevant today as it was then.

Ashby also made strong statements about the war in Vietnam throughout the film.
From the poignant conversation between Harold and Maude about the daisies, and the daisy turns into a military cemetery, to Uncle Victor and his discussion with Harold about going into the military. He also speaks loudly about the horrors of war in one of the most subtle ways in film. Just the glimpse of Maude's tattoo or her wrist is all that is needed. He did not need to exploit it to make his point. If H&M were made today, sadly there would be some huge dramatic scene about Harold seeing it with a emotional tour de force of Maude, that would be not for the movie, but more for the Academy.
Harold & Maude was one of the first indie films. To quote the AV Club. "The film is the birth of modern indie quirk, full of elements and attitudes that have now become cliché: Heroes who are more whimsical conceits than real-life, flesh-and-blood creations; an offbeat and slightly twee pop soundtrack (here by Cat Stevens); authority figures painted as stiff, clueless, and completely devoid of humanity; and some vague leftist political references thrown in for good measure." And you can see its influences on some of the indie directors today, such as Wes Anderson.
There is something dark and funny, when Harold tells Maude why he fakes his death, watching the police come and tell Harold's mother that he was dead. Watching from where he had been hiding after setting a fire at school, Harold watched as his mother fell over in grief. It's him telling Maude, “I decided then I enjoyed being dead.” that you can't help but grin about.

But at the heart it is an unconventional love story, finding the reason for why you are here, and living everyday fully. But now its your turn. What is it about Harold & Maude? What was funny? What's your favorite suicide attempt of Harols? Anything strike you and make you want rewind and watch again?