Minor movie musings

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As some of my Facebook friends know, I like to check out movies on DVD from the local library, and occasionally I discover some gold among the gravel. In the very-pleasant-surprises category, I'd put "The Browning Version," "Tous les Matins du Monde," and "Conversation Piece" (at least, they were surprises to me, because I had never heard of them). As for the disappointments -- well, let's just say that "perhaps the cinema's finest example of  Swabian proto-realism" doesn't necessarily make for movie magic.

I recently viewed three films that, if not quite 24-carat, were nonetheless rewarding. And in my wish to satisfy the fan of my blog clamoring for more of my nuggets of wisdom, here goes.

OK, "Wild Strawberries" is not exactly obscure: It is a Bergman film, after all, and I had heard of it, sorta. I liked it. It's pretty straightforward, and it's not a harrowing look at rape ("The Virgin Spring") or  an excruciating two hours  inside the mind of someone suffering a nervous breakdown ("Face to Face"). But when it comes to symbolism, Bergman doesn't fool around: Anyone who opens a film with a Crusader knight playing chess with Death ("The Seventh Seal") clearly likes that kind of thing straight up, and this film includes a dream sequence with a hearse spilling a coffin that opens...well, I won't spoil it for you.

"Being Julia" I had not heard of, and while it 's not great, it's a charming confection based on a Maugham novel ("Theater") and starring two of my personal faves, Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons. It goes down easy.

 Now, the third film is a bit tricky. I'll confess -- because if you are to blog, you must bare your soul and seek always, always to be authentic -- my motives for taking "Madchen in Uniform" (1958)  off the shelf did not spring from a desire for edification and moral uplift. Quite the contrary: It was the lurid appeal of the proclamations of forbidden lesbian love and frank homoeroticism (in uniform, no less) that did the trick.

Well, the claims were wildly overblown: If anything, the trailers for more contemporary soft-core lesbian films (a genre with which I was previously unfamiliar) that preceded the feature were racier than the main event. But I found the film compelling on several levels.

First, its esthetic was striking. It takes place in a Prussian convent school for girls in the early 20th century, and it is all pale blues and sage greens and creams and grays in interiors scrubbed and spare yet luminous.

Second, it exposed (at least for me) the unexpected range and nuance of the German language in which it is made. Most of the film embodies almost a caricature of Prussian discipline, order and militaristic sacrifice,and the harsh, guttural sounds of the language seem perfectly suited to that, especially when delivered in stern commands. But when the tone softens and turns gentle, it sounds amazingly warm and intimate - maybe by contrast. Who knew?

And finally, another esthetic: Lilli Palmer, who plays a teacher at the school, is a lovely woman, but the young Romy Schneider, in the lead role as a student, is striking, as if she is lit from within.

So there you go.