First feature by Bo Widerberg who could be called the Swedish anti-Bergman. His films focused more on working class Swedes with attention to the social and political conditions affecting them and less on their interior conflicts. Although some link him to the French New Wave, there is a strong social realist feel. And this one in particular reminded me of the British “kitchen sink” films about angry young men.
Set in 1936 when the Swedish Nazi Party was challenging the…
Movies We See on Airplanes
I had higher hopes for this because I admired Ben Affleck’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone. And this too was set in rough Irish working class Boston, which he clearly has a fondness for. But this crime thriller about a gang of bank robbers felt standard, even though the action and chase sequences were tense and well-filmed. And the love story at the center felt, well, unbelievable.
The other element of the film which I…
What at first seems like a comic film about an abrupt rift in two men's friendship becomes a tragic meditation on the fragility of the Irish male psyche. How men in that culture are blocked from revealing their feelings and their dependency needs and the consequences of this. We see this in the differing reactions of the two former friends Pádraic and Colm in their breach. It's a masterful film in how it becomes much more than a character and…
