Watching "The Girls" at film school it struck me how confused and disorganized this film is. There is nothing wrong with confusing the audience, something Davind Lynch has showed us over and over again, but in combination with this film lacking plot, the characters being 2 dimensional and lacking any sort of characteristics and the all out confused nature of the "narrative" this film comes of as little less than a drug fueled, surreal mess.Which is fine if the film is interesting. This film is not interesting. I have heard a lot of people calling it feminist. Maybe people call it that because the main characters are female and the director/writer is a woman. Well feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men". In this aspect the film is not feminist as the women say they won't to break free, but in reality are quite dependent on the men. At the end one of the actresses say she wants a divorce but this does not come off as she does it to liberate herself and be equal to the men.

I had high hopes for this, featuring a trio of Bergman's greatest actresses (Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom) in the leads and a pair of his greatest actors (Gunnar Bjornstrand, Erland Josephson) in supporting roles. Unfortunately, Mai Zetterling (whose LOVING COUPLES I somewhat enjoyed) goes way over-the-top with the experimental flourishes. The story involves a production of Aristophanes' classic sex satire "Lysistrata", with the play, reality, and fantasy bleeding into each other in a series of obvious juxtapositions, half-baked metaphors and heavy-handed social commentary. Subtlety is not to be found here, and the film's divebomb approach to the battle of the sexes is often grating and tedious. These actors are usually a joy to watch, and they give it their all, but they just can't overcome the material, which comes off as another naive product of 60's progressiveness. The heart's in the right place, but the execution is too irritating. Nice photography and a strong cast aren't enough.

Put together five of Ingmar Bergman's actors of choice -- Bibi Andersson, Gunnel Lindstrom, Harriet Andersson, Erland Josephson, and Gunnar Bjornstrand, and you would think this would be a more powerful, meditating feature tackling the topic of feminism as filtered through the play "Lysistrata", channeled through the eyes of its three female leads. Mai Zetterling's movie THE GIRLS is an oddity within itself. Too obscure at times, too serious for its own good, it dissolves into a series of conversations each of its three leads have within themselves and how the play seems to mirror their own lives, as well as their own growing dissatisfaction with the way things are in relation to women's position in society. Where the story takes its cue is in welding both the current times (1968) into a play that takes place thousands of years ago, and making us, the audience, clearly understand that attitudes towards women continue to be the same even now. From the eye of someone coming into this movie nearly forty years after its release, things have changed quite a bit -- the story is automatically dated --, but it would be an interesting debate to see just how far women have come since the rise of feminism in the early Seventies. On this note, THE GIRLS is worth seeking out -- not only because of its three strong female characters, all of them uniformly brilliant in their different takes of women coming to terms with who they are. On a minus, however, are the fantasy sequences, filmed in a bleached black and white which become almost impossible to assimilate because of the lack of any depth... it would have been best to make it a Bunuelian experience and leave the viewer wondering what was real or not. Even so, for those who appreciate Swedish cinema, this is lighter fare than Bergman, and less introspective.

I've just seen this film today, 19 Sept., and couldn't help but think of the New York terrorist attack. I read a letter to the editor about the attack and it said that if women were ruling the world the attacks would never have happened. However, this prescient film shows that that ain't necessarily so.What's so good about this film is the fair treatment it gives of women, showing their frivolous and silly side as well as the struggle to deal with their roles in their world. I liked the fight between the women, and the pathetic attempt Liz made to stir her audience into speaking, without any thought for who it was she addressed.Thirty-three years after it was made, the film is relevant and moving.