I Am Curious (Blue) (1968) Reviews

One of the most popular and controversial films in Swedish history, I Am Curious brought the sexual revolution to Sweden's silver screen. While much of the media hype centered on the film's scandalous content, the film's blending of documentary and fictional footage was equally shocking for Swedish audiences. Content-wise, the film's more controversial parts include the defacement of a photograph of Franco and a sequence where a young couple has sex in front of the royal palace. A film in two parts, Yellow and Blue each have essentially the same vague outline of a plot. Lena and her boyfriend engage in lots of liberated sexual play -- that's the fiction. At the same time, they are working on a documentary, which is real. In the documentary footage, they investigate Sweden's political history, the state of its democracy, and the everyday lives of its citizens. In the Blue version, Lena journeys far into the deserted north, filming the beautiful wilderness and revealing a decidedly unmodern Sweden. Blue's most significant departure from the first part is in this exploration of Sweden's pastoral ideal. ~ Brian Whitener, Rovi