Synopsis
In a small mining community in Northern Sweden, a group of youngsters about to take the leap in the adult age fight with themselves and the world around, while the ground literally trembles under their feet.
Broken Hill Blues
2013 ‘Ömheten’ Directed by Sofia Norlin
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Just a few notes from the Tribeca Film Festival. No time for a proper review.
Broken Hill Blues was slow-paced. It took a long time for the story elements to coalesce and seem like a story. In the end, I'm not sure what the filmmaker was aiming to say with the film. It reminded me of Gummo in that it showed characters struggling to live in a dead-end environment. I didn't stay for the filmmaker Q&A, but a friend who did said the filmmaker's goal was to show the parallels between the struggles of youth and the struggles of nature.
Some beautiful, romantic cinematography (reindeer, snowy Sweden, naked flesh) contrasted against ugly scenery (junk yards, mining pits).
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Berlinale 2014 - Generation
Ömheten traces the life of several young people in the mining town of Kiruna in northern Sweden. It's a honest yet amibigous look on what living in such a remote spot means for human life. But it's not only a story of people, the environment, the nature is an equal part of the film. It's an ecological filmmaking in a way, trying to catch the spirit of this special and unique location and how things between humans and their surroundings are closely and irrevocably related. The camerawork of Ömheten is stunning, always aiming to frame the vividness of each scene and becoming more and more streaming, floating between nature and human civilization. Almost Tarkowski-like.
The merciless…
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Yet more fascination with northern countries: in Sofia Norlin's first feature Broken Hill Blues, the mine is slowly digging away at the land under the northernmost Swedish town of Kiruna, an apt metaphor for something. Teens there are aimless but still teens, with lots of angst and alienation is constantly felt. The city of Kiruna has to move. There's a ghost of Bergman lurking here in the skinny boy wearing the black hoodie, and the juxtapositions of stunning natural beauty and bleak industrial wastelands. This magnificent nature and the mine provides such a contrast between the modern and the ancient, and tells so clearly in its geography about human vulnerability in general. These teens are, although blonde, gloomy, skinny, unhealthy,…
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Sofia Norlin's debut, Broken Hill Blues, happens to be one of those coming-of-age films that blends documentary with narrative, a slow, meandering narrative that never really comes together in my opinion. It feels like Norlin wasn't exactly sure where she wanted to go with the film, caught between the coming-of-age tales of the handful of teenage characters or focusing on the state of the iron ore mining town in Northern Sweden, unable to decide she seems to force them together hoping something will come of it all.
The visuals are beautiful, especially towards the end of the film where one of the teenagers goes on an impromptu trek through the wilderness with only a shotgun on his back.
Unfortunately, besides the inherit beauty of the surrounding landscape there's nothing much worthy of mentioning in Broken Hill Blues. Immensely forgettable.
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Broken Hill Blues or Omheten meanders slowly through the everyday lives of a small community of people. Its cinematography is incredibly stunning but the dialogue consistently falters, unable to give much power to the piece.
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