Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Second viewing; the first one was between October and December of 1986.

The lives of three sisters in a period of two years. Hannah is married to Elliott, who desires Hannah's sister Lee, who in turn is married to a misanthropic painter. The third sister is Holly, a former drug addict who tries different lines of work without success. Hannah's former husband (boyfriend, according to Wikipedia) is a hypochondriac TV writer who goes through an existential crisis.

The utter strangeness of the behavior displayed in this film, allied to the dispersion of the plot, and general banality of it all, allow for only one avenue of interpretation: it is a parody of soap operas, done via, among other techniques, an extreme dramatic acceleration, and a display by its characters of an absurdly phony attitude regarding culture. Unlike the average parody, there is no affection whatsoever toward its target; and soaps being after all at the bottom of the cultural food chain (so to speak), seeing a parade of its worst vices in such a dry manner makes for a rather dire spectacle. And thus, also unlike the average parody, laughter is next to impossible in it, with one possible exception at the end, when the revelation of a miraculous occurrence comes as a sort of punchline. Upon my first viewing, I had a totally different take on this movie, more akin to Roger Ebert's, for example. At any rate, all aspects of reality must be dealt with, and Hannah and Her Sisters, though not perhaps a pleasant way to spend near two hours (unless one is seriously deluded, like I think I once was), accomplishes its mission in dealing with at least one of those aspects, namely, low forms of fiction.

Rating: 50 (down from 75)