CineBad!!!

What kind of monsters could sit there and make fun of Mozart’s magnum opus, The Magic Flute? What kind of monsters could rank on the masterpieces of Ingmar Bergman? Scooter and Krustee can! I love Bergman films, and I like a good Mozart opera as much as anyone, but really, operas are about the cheesiest form of entertainment around! Take corny improbable plots and repetitive music, and there you have it!

I went into this movie thinking, what can I say about it? It’s the filming of a staged production of the Magic Flute. But it also has that special Bergman touch. For example, during the overture, the camera focuses on a little red haired girl in the audience. She’s staring at some point ahead; we think it’s the stage. She doesn’t fidget or squirm. She sits perfectly still. We see a lot of this little audience member throughout the film. We get to memorize every hair on her head, every pore on her angelic little face and every innocent minute facial gesture on her face as she absorbs this opera. She doesn’t want to be at home playing with Barbies, torturing her little sister or watching TV. She likes opera! Maybe it’s Swedish thing.

Just as we think the overture is coming to a close, surprise, there’s more! There’s that darn little red haired girl again! But then we get to see more people in the audience. The audience is actually a gathering of the United Nations– it’s full men in afros, and women with bindis. There are people from every corner of the globe there! Mozart can unite these diverse people as they sit and stare at this cheese fest …in Swedish no less! (it was translated from its original Italian or German or whatever into Swedish.)

Our opera opens with Tamino, our hero, trying to slay a dragon Unfortunately, he’s very un-heroically getting his butt whooped. He sings a song asking God to save him from this dragon. Three young maidens come along and flog the dragon to death with a stick, while Tamino lies there unconscious. It turns out that the maidens were working for the Queen of the Night, who wants to enlist brave Tamino’s help in rescuing her daughter who was abducted by the powerful Sarastro.

Tamino runs into Papageno, whose main occupation is to be jolly, chase women, play the pan pipes and catch birds. They team up and set off to rescue the princess. The three maidens give them a magic flute and a set of magic bells to help them conquer whatever hardships they encounter. Tamino and Papageno split up to look for the princess.

Papageno finds Pamina, the princess, and rescues her from the evil clutches of The Moor. I didn’t recognize him as being such, seeing as he was played by a regular white guy, but whatever. Pamina rejoices at being freed from the Moor, and falls in love with Tamino, even though he didn’t really do anything. Three little blonde haired boys that look like Hanson keep appearing in a hot air balloon and sing pep talks at them but also don’t divulge any useful information that would help them achieve their goals.

Eventually we realize that Sarastro is actually a nice benevolent guy who’s in charge of a cult of super holy people who revere him as a god. It’s actually the Queen of Night who’s bad. And Sarastro is Pamina’s father! The Queen is annoyed at him, and commands Pamina to kill her father. Torn between loyalty to each parent, Pamina sings about the woes of being in the center of a messy custody battle. Sarastro invites Tamino to become the next cult leader after he retires. Tamino first must endure walking through a cave filled with fire and weird naked demons doing interpretive dances inside. He triumphs over this task by playing the magic flute, and thus the fire doesn’t touch him. Sounds like cheating to me! I mean, all of the other cult members survived this ordeal without the use of magic or woodwind instruments! Bur anyway, the Hanson boys in the balloon appear again and everyone lives happily ever after. And then we see that little red haired girl again…