Touches You

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Simple but memorable of Abba Sydney Tour in 1977, priceless

I remember queuing for an hour an a half to see #ABBA - The Movie back in February 1978 - the line spreading right down the street in Sunderland. In those days, you could sit through a movie as many times as you like, so my mam and I watched it three times (including the documentary on Australia that was shown before and the advert for The Album)What was very clear at the time was that both girls were amazing singers and performers. Agnetha would say in later years that live shows were not their best performances - but watching this film, you would never know. I t was amazing for UK fans that just could not get tickets for the Gold And White Tour to hear the new music - songs that are now instilled in music history had never been heard before. Almost 3 million people applied for just two concerts at the Albert Hall in 1977, so tickets for any show were almost impossible to getMany years later, I paid a small fortune (at the time) when The Movie was released on home video. As the crowd sang Fernando and then the ovation to Dancing Queen began - I cried all over again. I still find it incredibly moving, even now.The DVD release is really he best way to see it. TV airings often don't show the full letterbox screen, so you actually miss a lot of the split screen edits and some of the special effects.A MUST for not only fans to see - the world should see just how amazing this group were when performing live.

This has some muddy nostalgia value as I recall seeing the film as a kid at the cinema with my sister and my Dad. Dad moaned to the management about how loud the music was, then was promptly ill in bed for the next two days.Now, even at the time, having seen A Hard Day's Night and Help! where the Fab Four are at the forefront of events and let us into their world, it seemed that this film fobbed us off with the story of a hapless disc jockey trailing the band across their tour of Australia, under pressure to deliver an in-depth interview.He misses press conferences, loses his press card, gets stuck in traffic jams. It quickly becomes tedious, repetitive and bad-tempered. All the more so because it depicts Abba as lovely untouchables at far remove.And also because - wait for it- Abba are soon revealed as officially The Worst Band Ever. Yep. Given a chance to shine at a press conference, they exhibit the intellectual savvy of the Cheeky Girls and the energy and wit of former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson. It's like they're actually trying to be uninteresting. The biggest laughs come from a question asked by a journalist. Suddenly you can see why music hacks hated them at the time. And the blokes have all the charisma of John Major, they seemed nervy, like they're unwillingly backing into the limelight. The sexy blonde one has a low profile and the dark one seems a bit forward, a bit OTT. How I longed for the Beatles' four personalities: the knockabout Ringo, the rapier wit of Lennon, the wry sardonic wit of George and Paul's laid back, insouciant cool.As I downed my third glass of Savignon Blanc I gloomily reflected that the band resembled the hosts of a Swedish suburban swinging club, where the evening would start off promisingly only to find yourself in the kitchen with Benny discussing the merits of the Yamaha synthesizer while the blonde one keeps out of sight...But the songs! Well, yes, this was Abba at their height, but they don't make much impact, every other song being a forgotten album track sung by the blokes. All are taken from the concerts, which is visually repetitive and sees the girls bathed in red light; unlike The Beatles however much of their visual appeal came from their cute, quirky videos.I gradually came to see the band in its imperial phase as a bunch of fascists taking over the world, only without the drive and ideology... Like the Beatles Love musical, this one will do what you never thought possible, and put you right off the band. Only latterly did I realise, with horror, that the hapless DJ spends the film being punished for not being an ABBA fan, and it's only after he's paid to see them in concert and is 'converted', bathed in an ethereal glow, that's he's allowed his time with them. Horrid. This was, of course, before ABBA became popular in an ironic, slightly indulgent way.BTW the Swedish director went on to better things; Chocalet and The Shipping News.

Now that it's out in DVD, the ABBA fans who missed the movie when originally released can delight in seeing their favorite group as they were then. Even though, the band has been disbanded for over 20 years, ABBA was unique for groups of the time, in that they left a fairly large legacy of surprisingly good quality videos of their music. This movie, although trite contains a fascinating video record of one of their most impressive tours. With the introduction of the musical Mamma Mia (based on ABBA songs) on Broadway several years back, which started an ABBA resurgence of sorts, the existence of videos like this one has let another whole generation get hooked on ABBA music. ABBA was an extremely attractive and very talented group which will live on through these videos. The video and sound quality of the DVDs ( I watch on an HD set ) is excellent considering the time period they were recorded. I liked ABBA back then, but never really followed their music closely. Now I'm hooked, and grateful for the video record that exists of " one of the greatest pop groups that ever was" ( from U2)