Simon and the Oaks

Swedish TV broadcast the 2011 film "Simon and the Oaks" (Simon och ekarna) this evening with one of my favorite German actors, Jan-Josef Liefers, playing a supporting role.

The story, after a book by Marianne Fredriksson, is complicated. Simon is growing up in the late 1930s in a working class family near the water outside of Gothenburg. He is more interested in reading, his best friends are the oak trees high above the water. He insists on going to school in town, and there meets Isak, the son of a German Jewish bookseller who fled Berlin with his wife and son. Isak and Simon become friends, and slowly exchange families. Isak learns the trade of a carpenter, Simon embraces the music and literature he is exposed to in Isak's father's house.

Eventually, Simon learns that he is adopted and that his father was also a German Jew. He searches for his roots, eventually finding an uncle and learning that his birthfather died just a few years ago.

It is a sweet family story, a little heavy on the classical music, but it tells the story of how people came to terms with World War II living far away but still so near to the horrors that were happening.

Liefers is superb – he seems to have learned Swedish for the role. It is his voice, speaking excellent Swedish with a German accent, intermingled with German. The other characters are also very well done, complicated people with secrets and longings and desires. They are not plastic perfect happy people, but they are very real. The cinematography, cutting between seasons, inside and outside, light and dark, is very well done, capturing the spectacular light of Sweden on a sunny summer day and the gloom of deepest winter night. 

You feel that you have really gotten to know these people and want the story to continue as the credits begin to roll.

Sound of Noise Again

We so liked Sound of Noise when we saw it last year in Lübeck and had noticed that it was being shown for one night only at different small towns around Skåne. Tuesday night finally fit into our schedule, i.e. we had time and there was not a monsoon expected. We had a great dinner with friends in Lund and one of them accompanied us to Gennarp.

Genarp, pronounced strangely enough as jenarp. Never knowingly driven through the place, although it has a church and a castle and a library. But we found it, even without a GPS. As our friend said: it's an adventure to drive without GPS, just for the sport of it.

There was plenty of parking at the swimming pool - just a few cars there. We walked in and saw this screen set up. It was hung from a cherry picker, held by guy wires against the wind, with loudspeakers on either side.

There were two groups of family sitting around, huddled under blankets. And two trucks sort of blocking the view of the screen. We organized a patch of cement, and turned to look at the trucks. And then we saw why the trucks were there - there was a 35mm projector, bolted on to the floor of one of the trucks. The other probably had the cherry picker and the screen tucked into it. They had electricity coming in from the ice cream shop, and were getting setup. We scored real chairs from shop and set ourselves up for the film - also wrapping ourselves in the blankets we had brought to sit on. About 2 dozen teenagers showed up, and as soon as it was dark, the show began.

The film is better the second time through. There are lots of little jokes we didn't get the first time. Political things even. And it is just plain fun.

As the credits rolled, everyone took their chairs back, and the full moon suddenly appeared above the clouds. And then it began to rain. Great timing! Kör vi! Ett-tvo-tre!

Nordic Film Festival 2010

And the other films I saw at the Nordic Film Festival 2010:

• Run Sister Run
  Finnish film about two teenage girls - one good, one bad. The good one turns bad, the two of them raise hell, and then the good one turns good again. 
• Caspar and the Forbidden Movie
  Finnish director Caspar Wrede made a film in 1970 about Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". The world was happy to see it when Solzhenitsyn got the Nobel Peace Prize, but Finland got its knickers in a knot about it and banned it. When the Swedes showed it on TV they cut the power to the senders located on the Aaland Islands so no one could watch. Caspar got mad and returned to the theater. In 1996 (!) the Finns finally resented and broadcast it on TV.
• But Film Is My Mistress
  Another Ingmar Bergmann retrospektive. Reuses bits from other documentaries. Nothing new to see here, move along.
• Beyond
  This one won the festival prize, although I was sick of yet-another-alcoholic-parent and dysfunctional-family. Noomi Rapace proves that she plays the same character in all movies - it was great in the Millenium trilogy, but rather tiring in a different setting. She does have good taste in men, however - her real-life husband Ola Rapace plays her husband in the film, and he sure is good-looking!
• The Place
  An Icelandic youth gets put in jail by mistake, is brutalized, gets saved by his girlfriend.
• The Trainer
  Jens Albinus, the actor who plays the Eagle in that wonderful Danish cop series, is a handball trainer. His goalie suspects that the trainer has jerked him off while he was drunk. Did he or didn't he?
• Dreamland
  This time it is not people getting raped, but the Icelandic countryside, ravished to produce electricity that is consumed by aluminum plants to produce all those cans the Americans pitch after having a cola or a beer. Interesting documentary.

I would have liked to see more, but there was no time. Maybe next year!

Between Two Fires

The Polish-Swedish co-production Between Two Fires is about asylum seekers. Marta is a single mother in Belarus and lives with an older man, letting him use her, in order to have food for her girl. She works as a cleaner at the train station. One day Jurii comes by and sees her daughter, and when she comes home a few days later she finds her daughter raped by and sold to Jurii. He takes young girls to Minsk as prostitutes.

Marta quickly organizes a way to get to Sweden, where a friend of hers lives. According to the mother of the friend, she is now rich there, living in a nice house with nice clothes and a big car. 10 days later they are in Kiruna, in a home for asylum seekers. At first, Marta thinks she is safe, but she quickly learns that danger is everywhere for both her and her daughter. Her roommate scares her, because she has a knife in her bed. Marta applies for a different room, but this is not possible.

She applies for asylum, and waits. During the wait she meets Ali, from Algeria. She is afraid of him at first, but soon falls in love with him - rather corny, filled with shower-wet scenes. A bit less sex would not have detracted from the story proper.

Marta finally finds her friend, but she has married a Swede in order to get a residence permit. She lives in a little flat, and the beautiful house she was photographed in front of is one of the houses she cleans. Her friend, Gosci, offers to have her marry another older Swedish man so that she, too, can get a residence permit.

Marta gets her own flat, and believes that she will now stay, but there is no happy end. I don't want to reveal the exact details here, as the film has not been screened except for film festivals.

The film does an excellent job of showing that asylum seekers are not just leeches here to prey on a rich society. They are all traumatized, all in a different way, and putting them all in a home together is not exactly a good idea. We tend to ignore them, hope that they go away, back "home" - a home that may prove fatal to most of them. But they are human beings, they want to live, love, work, and pray, just like we do. They may not be like us, they have different values, but they are human none the less.

The producer and the first assistant director were there after the film. The extras in the film are real asylum seekers from the area around Kiruna. One person asked what the authorities said that they were taking part in such a move. They smiled slyly and noted that they didn't ask the authorities for permission - the asylum seekers are free to spend their days as they please. They did not use a real asylum center, but a camp site far outside of Kiruna as the film location.  

They are planning their next screenings in the south of Sweden - the part of Sweden in which the anti-foreigner Swedish Nationalist Party received 10% of the vote in the recent election. I look forward to hearing about the reception of Between Two Fires - the story of a mother between a rock and a hard place. 

Sound of Noise

Ahhhhh!

A Scandinavian film that does not involve alcoholic, divorced parents, juvenile deliquients, the Nazi occupation, or pedophilia! Okay, there is anarchy involved - serious anarchy. And art. Much fun is made of the musical establishment and a case made for the rhythm, the music to be found in a city.

The music involved in Sound of Noise consists of four pieces of music for six drummers and a city. I can't tell much more without giving away the film. The directors first made a short film Music for one Apartment and Six Drummers - and they are now often asked if that film "inspired" them. Uh, yeah. They made it. Duh.

The main character is a great actress Sanna Persson, whom I had not noticed before, but who could act behind a chador, her eyes alone speak volumes. She and her buddy - one of the directors - hire the 6 best drummers, who play themselves in order to perform this work.

There are so many comical scenes, so much to make you smile or laugh out loud. The Nordic Film Festival is the first major screening, they are planning on releasing in Sweden for Christmas Day. Lucky Swedes!

As WiseMan notes - even just telling people about the film makes you want to go back and see it again. We're now sorry we missed this one as the opening film - apparently, four of the six drummers were there in person to give a short concert. If they ever go on tour: I want to be there!

Farsan

We saw the Swedish comedy Farsan (Daddy) by Josef Fares this evening in a well-visited film club in Berlin - in Swedish! Fares is the director of other comedies such as Kopps and Jalla, Jalla, both family favorites. I also saw Leo, a more serious film, a few years ago at the Berlinale.

Farsan features Fares father, Jan Fares, a Swedish actor of Lebanese descent as - what else? - the father. Such a charming macho, getting himself into all sorts of trouble. We were laughing and laughing at the embarrassing situations he was getting himself into.

Love, relationships, manliness, minorities: lots of topics and subtopics, but mostly just an enjoyable 90 minutes. Just noticed that it is available in English as Balls - oh my, yes, I have to giggle about the grilled sheep's testicles that play an important role in this. Aptly named, if I do say so!

Vergebung

I tagged along with the usual suspects to see "Vergebung" last night, the German version of "Luftslottet som sprängdes",  the last of the Stieg Larsson Millenium trilogy.

The movie is sooooo interesting, that it felt like I hadn't seen it before, although it was only a few months ago. Maybe there is such a difference in the TV and the movie version. Anyway - worth it to see it twice!

Luftslottet som sprängdes

The last movie of the Millenium trilogy, clocking in at about 2 1/4 hours for the Swedish version, is called "The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest" in English. Since we didn't have time to go to the movies, we dug down and purchased a DVD. It was still cheaper than 2 movie tickets....

The first one was okay, the second one was quite a boring let-down, so we were just watching this one to finish out the trilogy.

And wow - it packs a punch! They've stripped the book of a lot of the parallel stories, focusing on Lisbeth Salander and the charges against her. Sure, they couldn't resist a little bang-bang action (which is in the book), but the movie is very well done, suspenseful (even if you have read the book) and there is even a spot of good acting here and there, although no Academy Awards expected.

Of course, you pretty much have to sit through the second one so you can follow the third one, that's life.

And just like with the books - it can't be over! I want another one RIGHT NOW!

The Girl who Played with Fire: The Movie

I saw "Men who hate Women" on DVD. I have now seen "The Girl who Played with Fire"on DVD (Swedish: Flickan som lekte med eld). If it would have been on TV I would have changed the channel, as I found it quite boring. Okay, so I read the book, which craftily weaves all sorts of subplots into a tapestry of suspense. And you really can't get the 1000 pages of the book into about 2 hours. But I mean, come on, they changed all sorts of things, like Blomkvist taking a car to Gothenburg instead of a train. Characters like Erika are just shadows, Stockholm is just a nice backdrop, and the police are just police. None of the fighting amongst the police that went on in the book.

Maybe reading the book first spoiled it, but the book was sooo great. If you haven't read it: start. I gave book one to two people for Christmas this year ;)

The Girl who Played with Fire: The Movie

I saw "Men who hate Women" on DVD. I have now seen "The Girl who Played with Fire"on DVD (Swedish: Flickan som lekte med eld). If it would have been on TV I would have changed the channel, as I found it quite boring. Okay, so I read the book, which craftily weaves all sorts of subplots into a tapestry of suspense. And you really can't get the 1000 pages of the book into about 2 hours. But I mean, come on, they changed all sorts of things, like Blomkvist taking a car to Gothenburg instead of a train. Characters like Erika are just shadows, Stockholm is just a nice backdrop, and the police are just police. None of the fighting amongst the police that went on in the book.

Maybe reading the book first spoiled it, but the book was sooo great. If you haven't read it: start. I gave book one to two people for Christmas this year ;)

Men who Hate Women: The Movie

Just saw Men who Hate Women on DVD. We bought it in Sweden because we just missed the first movie in the theaters and the second one wasn't to be out until we were gone. The Swedish Embassy showed it the night before it opened in German in Germany as Verblendung, but I had handball that night, so only WiseMan saw it. So since he is up in Stockholm meeting with all sorts of folks, I made a great dinner and then curled up.

Condensing this massive volume into a movie, even a longish one like this one which clocks in at 2 1/2 hours, is a difficult task. A lot of the very many side stories that Stieg Larsson so craftily wove into the story to lead you astray had to disappear. Also, the journalism involved in producing the story is collapsed into a party at the office and some headlines.

But the movie is very well done, great music and the two main actors do an excellent job - they fit right in with the ideas I had in my mind about who these two were, although I had Mikael down as being a bit handsomer. But Nyquist is sooooo well-known (for example in Så som i himmelen) I suppose he is just handsome by definition.

Do see the movie - but read the book first, because it would spoil the book to know how it turns out.

Tyskungen

I started this book over Christmas when I wasn't feeling well enough to do anything more than sit with a cup of tea and read. Camilla Läckberg's Tyskungen (The German Child) is quite a page turner about a Swedish mother and writer, Erica, being curious about her own mother's past. She reads her diaries and wonders why her mother had some sort of German medal in her belongings.

Erica starts to inquire - and people start getting killed in quiet little Fjällbacka. The book winds stories of life in Sweden and Norway during the Second World War in between strands of today - Erica, her policeman-husband currently on papa time, the murders.

I kept reading through 3 days of high fever, and then stayed up until 2 am the first night without a fever to finish it off. I hope it gets translated to English and German soon.

Cheap gas

Ahhhhh, back in Sweden!

It used to be that we would fill the gas tank in Rostock, because gas was soooooo expensive in Sweden. Now we try to get on the ferry with just enough gas to coast along to the first gas station in Trelleborg.

The price for a liter gas was around 1.60 Euros last week, since school vacation just started and the gas stations like to gouge families. I filled up the tank this evening in Trelleborg for 13:05 SEK (about 1.38 Euro). This is not a tax difference, it is the oil companies.

Now can someone explain to me how there is a free market for gas in Germany? I smell a cartel.

(For the Americans: the German price is south of 9 $ a gallon. Qwitcherbitchin.)

Jörn Donner on Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work

The Swedish Embassy was showing Jörn Donner's Om liv och arbete (On Life and Work) that was made in 1998 for the German/French TV station ARTE - with Donner himself in attendance to answer questions afterwards.

I love having the guys there to ask them questions about the production. The film has Donner asking Bergman questions and Bergman explaining and telling stories and being mischievous and being sad and thoughtful and mostly not being his normal ego-centric, overbearing self. Bergman comes across as a charming old gentleman and Donner as a much younger intellectual asking tough questions of the old guy. The film gives the illusion of this being an afternoon's chat.

Actually it was filmed over a 3-day period in the studio in Stockholm, said the shockingly old and thin man who did, actually, bear a resemblance to Donner. The IMDB shows him to be 74, just 15 years younger than Bergman. The cultural attaché for Sweden asked some questions, then the mike was opened - and of course, no one dared to ask, so I (as always) asked the question that had been building in my mind: what exactly was their relationship? Donner danced around this a bit, but settled on "good friend", they knew each other for 50 years. But he was closer to Michaelango Antonioni, who died the same day as Bergman.

And that was the questions, so we went to get some nice wine served upstairs. Donner did come up, so I went over to listen in some more and maybe get in another question or too. He spoke about producing "Fanny & Alexander" and about his book "Report from Berlin" which was published in 1958 and is apparently to be reprint next year, 50 years later, with a new chapter from him. And about some guys sitting on film material he wants to use and this and that and that other stuff and all about him and I thought: Who is he to be calling Bergman egocentric? He is just as much himself. The sparks must have flown when they had a disagreement!

An enjoyable evening, perhaps only marred by the embassy people forgetting to turn on the subtitles and in the ensuing commotion (I had no problem with the Swedish, but apparently many others did) they had to turn off the film, find the menu for the subtitles, and restart the film. Why don't people do a rehearsal for things like this?

More Bergmann

What a dilemma - now the sun is shining, but there is Bergman on TV every day....

Friday night they showed "Fanny and Alexander" - the 5-hour, 4-part TV version. But they didn't start until 9 pm, I didn't make it through. Really a lovely film, and well deserved of all those Oscars.

The weather was soooo nice on Saturday, I missed the last part of the documentary telling about Farö. Oh well, who cares.

Sunday they showed "Cries and Whispers", Bergman and Sven Nyquist's attempt to do a women's film, i.e. everyone is either wearing white or the walls are decorated red or someone is bleeding. Is that how men see women? Silly gooses, crying, whispering, or bleeding (or all of the above?). Still, some nice acting in there.

Monday we had "The Smiles of a Summer Night" - the one that one in Cannes about 50 years ago. A nice love story, first everyone is unhappy, then there is a nice happy end after some surprises (and shock for the viewers when they think the lawyer has killed himself playing Russian Roulette or the son tries to hang himself). The son looks like August Strindberg - this must be by design. A delightful film with the moral: love makes everyone happy.

As It Is In Heaven

Finally got around to seeing the lovely Swedish love story, "Så som i himmelen"! It was at the Nordic Film Festival last year, but there was some other film on in parallel that I really wanted to see. And then when it was running in Berlin in Swedish I could never make it... same thing for when the first run in German came. But luckily, the film is still going strong, so I made it at a second-run movie theater.

This is one of those films that you either love and want to see 15 times, or you positively hate. I have met people from both camps. I tend towards the former - I would definitely see it again, although there are some discontinuities and unmotivated things happening, but the love story is so tangible, that makes it so enjoyable.

The plot in a nutshell: Daniel Daréus is a famous conductor with a traumatic past. He collapses and quits his job, returning to the Northern Sweden of his boyhood. He buys the local school house (we have friends wo did that, this gives you LOTS of room!) and moves in, piano and all. Turns out, Italian shoes are not the right thing for walking in the snow. Everyone is amazed that he is there, the village organizer and busybody insists he come to choir practice. Daniel ends up taking over the choir, even though he knows nothing about conducting a choir. It is hard work, but in very few sessions, all of the women in the choir are in love with him. He does not seem to notice this. He is very gentle and tender to all the women, they all lap it up because their own men are beaters / bores / bullies. The women are all jealous of each other, quitting choir when then think one of the others is more favored by Daniel. He manages to get them all to return without sleeping with them. They attend a choir competition in Salzburg, he is greeted by press and beautiful women from his past. Lena, the pretty young thing, gets really jealous. Daniel is speaking with an old friend and says "They all love me." Then he seems to realize something. He hurries to Lena, bangs on her door to have her let him in, and then this wonderful scene occurs:

Daniel: When you like someone, how do you know that you love them?
Lena: Well, you... it makes you happy when you see him.
Daniel: Yes. And more?
Lena: You, you think about him all the time.
Daniel: Right. What else?
Lena: You're happy when you're with him.
(Now Daniel gets this look on his face like he is working hard on the logic, then his eyes light up and he looks at Lena the way women want men to look at them all the time)
Daniel: Happy when you are together... Lena... I love you.

They land in bed, he goes for a bike ride while she gets ready for the choir, he has a heart attack and does not make it to the performance, the choir does a great job without him, moving all the others to chant with them, crescendo, cut, kleenex.

Nice scenery, lots of clichés about Sweden, lots of excitement trying to guess which of the women will get him. Can music so possess you that you do not realize people are in love with you?