The Great Adventure

There isn't too much to say about The Great Adventure that it doesn't say better itself. It is a lovely film about many kinds of life--man's is one, and so is the otters', the foxes', the lynxs' and the cranes'.

The great adventure is what happens each day and season around the forest. The wonderful thing is that the movie shows that each occurrence in the forest is important but that none is separate. There are no little things, and there aren't either starts or endings. There isn't too much time for grief or joy about past things in the woods, because each moment is too full.

The movie is filmed inside the forest--there aren't any false great scenic vistas. In each sequence there are usually trees overhead--so that the life shown isn't abstracted from the forest. The death of a fox is seen as a fox would see it.

Without any professional actors, the writing, filming and production has been done by the Swedish director, Arne Sucksdorff. His dim photography sometimes suggests a world of creatures from Chagall's paintings. But comparisons are unimportant; the film gets close to the life of the forest without distorting its rhythm, which isn't often done.

There are also on the bill some Charlie Chaplin movies. In these, the happenings on the screen are wonderfully funny and the music is demonic. This week's program at the Brattle is about the finest in several months.