International Cinema III: Sweden
It’s been a month already since I released the second episode of my ambitious little project to see the world on the small screen, “International Cinema“. To read the introduction and what’s this all about, check out the first episode. This third edition is gonna be a special one just for Sweden. When I started writing all these reviews I realized that I have way too many for Sweden, more than anyone would care to read when published along with 5 other countries. Back when I taught myself Swedish, I started watching a lot of Swedish movies to train my listening comprehension. It works pretty well actually, especially when at first you watch the movie with Swedish subtitles and then later watch it again without subtitles. I can recommend this method with pretty much any language and you might find some exciting new favorites! đ
Sweden
SmultronstÀllet / Wild Strawberries (1957)
One of Ingmar Bergman’s first movies, this is about an old guy who, realizing that his life is ending, goes back to the place where he grew up and dives into his memories. Very slow and thoughtful, with great pictures. My favorite Bergman.
Det sjunde inseglet / The Seventh Seal (1957)
Ingmar Bergman’s most famous movie is about a knight who meets death and offers to play a game of chess with him to prevent Death from taking the knight with him. Personally I liked Wild Strawberries better. There was something about Det sjunde inseglet which confused me a bit.
Tystnaden / The Silence (1963)
Another one of Ingmar Bergman’s classics, this is about two emotionally distant sisters stuck in a strange city. The film broke numerous taboo’s back in it’s day. It’s very slow and kinda bleak (but no suprise there, it’s a Bergman film).
Vargtimmen / Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Vargtimmen comes along as the typical Bergman film – silent, with long, thoughtful shots. But unlike his other films, this one is intentionally creepy, focusing on psychological torment. It’s OK, but in my opinion Bergman’s best film is still SmultronsstĂ€llet.
Fanny och Alexander (1982)
One Ingmar Bergman’s last movie, but actually I didn’t really like it a lot. It’s like 3 hours of the deadly boring life of two rich kids in the early 1900s with their mean grandmother. I already forget the rest of the plot.
Ronja Röverdotter (1984)
I was so majorly bored by this movie that I skipped through the second half of it. I just couldn’t stand watching it anymore, for both it’s boringenss and also it’s annoyingness. I can’t seem to get into this kid’s stuff.
Fucking Ă
mÄl / Show Me Love (1998)
Small town girl falls in love with the class queen and has trouble dealing with it. Even though it’s an artsy film without background music or good cinematography, I thought it was actually pretty good.
GlasblÄsarns Barn / The Glassblowers Children (1998)
Stellan SkarsgÄrd (Pirates of the Caribbean II & III) and Pernilla August (Star Wars I) play the parents (typecasting?) to two children, who are abducted by an evil queen in the kingdom around the corner. They try to get them back. Pretty typical fairy-tale sort of movie.
Den Osynlige / The Invisible (2002)
Niklas is beat up in the woods and left for dead. Next morning he gets up from his forest soil bed and goes to school, but he soon finds out that nobody seems to be able to see him and realizes that he must be a ghost of some sort. He follows his friends & foes around, trying to find out what happened to him. He realizes that the margins between friends and foes seem to blur.
This was recently remade in Hollywood, but I haven’t seen the remake and I don’t want to, because I’m sure I’d be very upset about it. Den Osynlige is no doubt my favorite Swedish movie ever. It’s very profound with an incredibly emotional ending.
Kopps (2003)
Even though the plot of this movie is incredibly stupid, it’s kinda entertaining and funny. The police station in a very small town is threatened to be closed for a lack of crime, so the small group of policemen starts causing crimes themselves in order to save their jobs.
This is the second successful movie by Lebanese-born director Josef Fares with his brother Fares Fares in the lead role, their father in a small supporting role and Torkel Peterson in a supporting role. Their first was Jalla! Jalla!, which is about a family of Lebanese immigrants in Sweden, where the son is supposed to marry a girl he doesn’t wanna marry. Personally I liked Kopps better, it’s more fun.
Ondskan / Evil (2003)
An oscar-nominated drama about a guy in the 50s (or something) called Erik, who gets in trouble and is sent to a boarding school by his strict step-father. He finds that the older students in the boarding school control the younger ones, but he doesn’t want to play by their rules and causes trouble.
Smala Sussie (2003)
This mostly feels like a “guy movie”. Lots of weird action and general guy stuff. It’s not a bad as some other guy movies though, it’s on some level enjoyable for girls too. It’s a comedy about a guy who goes back to his home village to investigate the disappearance of his missing sister. That’s pretty much all I can say without spoiling it.
PopulÀrmusik frÄn Vittula (2004)
Though I didn’t really like the movie, it’s kinda interesting to watch because of the Swedish/Finnish rivalry. It’s set in north Sweden close to the Finnish border, where a minority of Finnish speaking people lives. There seems to be an everlasting battle between the Finnish speakers and the Swedish speakers. The plot focuses on the teenage life of two boys who join a band. I thought it had a slight homosexual undertone.
SĂ„ som i Himmelen / As it is in Heaven (2004)
Famous conducter guy has a heart attack and goes back to his small home village in north Sweden to relax. Turns out to be not so relaxing, because he agrees to train the local church choir which aren’t giving him an easy time. While this might sound like a boring topic, the movie is actually quite powerful. Especially the ending totally blew me away.
Storm (2005)
First time I watched this I didn’t understand a thing. That was because I had just started learning Swedish and I didn’t have any subtitles for this. Second time I watched it I still didn’t have subtitles, but I understood much better what it was about. But I still didn’t like it any better, because it’s sort confusing. It’s like a mixture of The Matrix and Dark City, just weirder and not really logic.
Frostbiten (2006)
Frostbiten is a highly entertaining teeny-ish vampire movie with a dark advantage: these vampires live their undead lives in the far north of Sweden where the sun doesn’t shine for almost a month… Might sound similar to the recent 30 days of Night (which I haven’t seen), but this one was there first, and it’s got a lot more fun than fear.
Arn – Tempelriddaren (2007)
Sweden’s (or even Scandinavia’s?) most expensivest production evaH – and I was bored out of my mind. Two hours and 10 minutes of the incredibly slow life story of Arn the Knight Templar Dude and his and other people’s relationship with gawd. Half of the movie nobody speaks. The rest of the movie people speak either Swedish or English – the latter being totally unauthentic. They should have kept it Swedish, Latin and Arabian only. Arn certainly doesn’t speak a lot, he’s sort of broody. I don’t like broody people.
For me most of the movie was just “Oh look, it’s Stellan SkarsgĂ„rd! As a father! Typecasting!”, “Oh look, it’s Vincent Perez! Even hot as a monk!”, “Oh look, it’s Pernilla August, the Virgin Mary from Star Wars I!”, “Oh look, it’s Gustaf SkarsgĂ„rd! With long hair! In a movie with his own father!”, “Oh look, it’s Michael Nyqvist! Not conducting! “, “Oh look, it’s Bibi Andersson! So old!”, “Oh look, it’s that guy from Shakespeare in Love, Simon Callow!”, …
I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up the release rhythm next month because I haven’t seen enough new foreign movies for an entire episode yet. My main problem is that I still haven’t found good movies from new countries yet, instead I’ve seen a couple more Spanish and German ones. However, I’d like to wait a while before I keep repeating countries. So if you have any suggestions for very exotic foreign movies, please leave them in the comments! đ
Reading this list you’d think that every other Swedish movie is a Bergman movie. đ
You should include an indian movie for completeness. If you have never seen one before, beware: The newer ones (>1999) are all the same, heavily hollywood-influenced crap. Do not use german subtitles, english ones usually make more sense. Skip the dancing parts if they annoy you, they are mostly just sex scene substitutes.
The other region that’s obviously missing is Japan, although I haven’t seen a single Japanese movie that was not an anime and didn’t suck. As for anime: Try not to concentrate on the story but focus on the characters instead (even the annoying ones). Japanese also doesn’t translate well, so try to get several different fansubs and use the version that seems to make the most sense. Princess Mononoke is one of my personal favourites, Ghost in the Shell is nice, too, but apparently I didn’t understand that one at all.
This is incredibly cool.. I wish I understood more languages, because I’m sure it’s infinitely better being able to understand it. I might check these out, if I can find them!
ask frau hwang for some suggestions. she’s into asian movies, taiwan, china, hong kong and has provided me with some really awesome tips.
different world and maybe not fully accessible to white bread like us, but still good times.
The only movie I’ve watched out of that list is Invisible, but of course, I watched it in English. đ
I think maybe you have to grow up watching Ronja Røverdotter to really appreciate it. Else it might seem like a weird kids’ movie.
As It Is In Heaven is such a lovely movie. I really like the song that battered woman sings.