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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 424117" data-attributes="member: 8">SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY (1971)[ATTACH=full]56434[/ATTACH]It tells the story of a love triangle between a woman and a homosexual man and their bisexual, younger lover.It's a rather bleak and uneventful psychological character drama and mostly devoid of humour, but I also found it spellbinding and even somewhat unnerving to watch.The film's outstanding direction and photography takes a lot of credit for that, and the influence of New Wave cinema is still very much felt in many scenes.The story of the main characters unravels very slowly and I'm not going to lie, I was aware of its nearly two hours running time.That love story is generously interspersed with all sorts of vignette-style scenes and characters - sometimes in an abrupt and intrusive way - and it helps preventing the film from becoming stale. You never know what's going to happen next and in that regard there's also a little bit of "Robert Altman" in it, especially in the way certain scenes are set up from unusual angles which seamlessly blends the background with the story's centre stage.As for the psychological drama, there is some bitter irony in losing what was already a compromise to begin with, although the woman (Glenda Jackson) and the man (Peter Finch) experience it in a different way.I guess it makes sense that a Jewish homosexual doctor would lower his expecations regarding a perfectly fulfilling lovelife, and the woman had convinced herself to believe in the compromise because she has no idea what to do with her life.This is somewhat underscored by radio news reports of England's economical crisis (though I think it would be more informative to tell the public when there isn't a crisis going on).When the young artist (Murray "One Night In Bangkok" Head) makes a big decision for his lovers it forces them to re-evaluate the situation. Interestingly, it's only then when I realised how much emotionally invested I was in this story, and that's also my only gripe with this film: I wish I had been more aware of that when all of it was happening right under my very nose.On the other hand, that could have made film look spoiler-ish and predictable.Fans of seventies vintage will be spoilt, there are plenty of "what the hell is that" props, and yet I wouldn't say that the film looks particularly dated.I guess it doesn't hurt that I've watched the Criterion restored high-definition version.This refers to a scene in wich a "Tanya Turner" type and her husband gatecrash a friends get-together. A domestic argument erupts out of the blue but the other guests seem to be familiar with it, hence the "old tits" reference.These sort of unexpected or seemingly unrelated events weren't uncommon in seventies dramas (just think of the catfight in Get Carter) and it's really fascinating to watch. Incidentally, I couldn't figure out what the connection between the main characters and the progressive family-with-kids was. They seem like the most unlikely friends. There's also a black professor or activist typing away his speeches in the family's kitchen, and combined with the scene of pot-smoking toddlers it reminded me that the hippie culture hadn't died out yet.It's a fabulous time capsule but not the kind of film that's going to entertain everybody.</blockquote>

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