The Home (3 Stars)

This is the 30th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

My diligent readers must be scratching their heads. Didn't I already review this film on Friday? Yes and No. I reviewed "The Home", but it was a different film. That was an American film, and the film I'm reviewing today is a Swedish film with the original title "Hemmet".

Joel's mother, Monika, suffers from dementia. He returns to her home from the big city to deliver her into an old people's home. Or maybe it's a specialist care home. All the residents are suffering from dementia. Monika talks continually about seeing her abusive husband Bengt, who died 20 years ago. Joel puts this down to the dementia, but then he starts to see Bengt as well. There are also strange occurrences with the other old people in the home.

In itself, this is a good film, mysterious and supernatural. I've given it a relatively low rating because I don't like films about dementia.

Halloween Park (5 Stars)

This is a film that was sprung on me. My local cinema didn't show any trailers or display advance posters. It was only listed three days before it started. It's a Swedish film called "Karusell" ("Carousel"). I find the international title, "Halloween Park", more appropriate. Maybe it should have been called "I know what you did last Halloween".

At Halloween there's a party where youngsters drink and take drugs. 15-year-old Petra is unpopular, and the other children are disappointed that she arrives at the party. They spike her drinks with LSD. She runs into the forest and dies in an accident.

On Halloween the next year the five children responsible for Petra's death are invited to a midnight VIP show at the Liseberg fairground. They're the only guests, and they can go on the rides all night. Not just the carousel. They can ride the roller coaster, the Ferris wheel and other rides whose names I don't know. But a killer in a Halloween mask is hunting them down.

This is a perfect slasher movie. It carefully includes a hook for a sequel film, so it might be the start of a new franchise. I can already hear the critics yelling that it's too predictable, but who cares? Slasher films don't need to have multiple plot twists, all they need is an unstoppable killer and a high body count.

The film was dubbed into German, but as always I have to praise the quality of the German dubbing. It was so good that it sounded like an original German film. Compare that to the awful English dubbing of "Veneciafrenia". Why is German dubbing so good and English dubbing so bad?

The Conference (3½ Stars)

Netflix Thursday #34

It makes a change for me to watch a Netflix Thursday film on a Thursday. I ought to do it more often.

This is a Swedish slasher film, added to Netflix just in time for Halloween. A company is going to build a shopping mall just outside a small Swedish village called Kolarängen. It's a real village, check it out. They promise to bring prosperity to the community, but the villagers aren't persuaded. A few days before the building begins the company's nine employees arrive for a last-minute conference. They stay at a holiday camp made up of small cabins. I wonder if this holiday camp really exists. They're given relaxing activities to prepare them for their work, such as building a raft and sack jumping.

Not all of the employees agree with the building. Some are shocked to find out that the farmer wasn't paid for the land that will be used. Is that legal? Signatures were forged to get planning permission. But someone wants revenge. A masked figure is prowling the holiday camp, slaughtering the occupants.

It's a reasonable film, but I was disappointed by the lack of character development. Some are young, some are old, some are men, some are women, but they're hardly distinguishable. I couldn't sympathise with the victims. Some of my readers might like the film. Give it a try. It's worth watching at least once.

Shadow Island (2 Stars)

This is the ninth film in the Stuttgart Nights Festival.

"Shadow Island" is a slow-moving mystery that takes place on a small island in the Barents Sea. David is a Swedish teenager who's about to begin a university course on Meteorology. This is the same subject that his father studied, but he can't ask him anything, because his father hanged himself 18 years ago. David finds notes about his father's research on a small Norwegian island, so he decides to spend a few weeks on the island in an abandoned lighthouse.

David is alone on the island, but he makes contact with a young woman who lives alone in a lighthouse on a neighbouring island. It's a strange place for a woman to live alone, but the lighthouse has belonged to her family for over 200 years, and she can't bear to move out.

Supposedly they're the only two people on the two islands, but they spot people walking around at night.

It's a typical Nordic noir film. Even the director admitted this in his introduction. I personally found it too slow, especially in contrast to "Sakra" immediately before. I was also annoyed by the anti-NATO messages. The director said that he began making the film in 2019, three years before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but it still grates alongside Putin using NATO as an excuse for his Russian imperialism.

Evil (3 Stars)

This is a film based on a best-selling novel, and it was nominated as Best Foreign Language Film for the 2004 Oscars. It deals with Erik Ponti, a 15-year-old boy who's been expelled from several schools for getting into fights. His parents see only one more chance for him. He's enrolled in Stjarnsberg, an elite boarding school. It's so expensive that his mother has to sell most of her possessions to pay the tuition fee.

Most of the pupils come from the Swedish nobility. The rest come from rich families. Only Erik comes from a (relatively) poor family, but he doesn't tell the others. It's a cruel school in which the sixth form boys rule over the younger boys, making them do humiliating chores like cleaning their dirty football boots. Knowing the sacrifice his mother has made, he makes an effort not to let himself be provoked, but that doesn't mean he gives in. He refuses to do chores, which leads to punishments like detention and not being allowed to go home at the weekend.

It's common knowledge that many boarding schools have a system that the older boys have power over the younger boys, but I've never heard of anything this extreme. The teachers themselves don't discipline the children, they leave it up to the sixth form.

All I can say is that I'm glad I was never in a boarding school. I can be glad that my parents weren't rich enough. I had a good education in Queen Mary's Grammar School, and even now, many years later, I fondly remember my experiences.

Success Rate:  + 2.2

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The Flute and the Arrow (4 Stars)

Netflix Thursday #13

This is a Swedish film made in 1957. It has the form of a documentary, even though some scenes must have been added for dramatic effect. In fact, it's difficult to see where the dividing line is between fact and fiction. This is a deliberate tactic by the director Arne Sucksdorff.

The film takes place in central India, in a region where there are many tribes with different religions and different languages. The main characters are Ginju from the Muria tribe and his wife Riga from the neighbouring Gando tribe. Ginju is an outcast, because his wife's tribe is considered inferior. The feelings are mutual. Both tribes look down on one another. Nevertheless, there's a yearly market in Muria when all differences are forgotten for two days and Ginju is allowed to bring his wife home.

A leopard has been attacking the villagers. This is seen as a punishment from the Gods, and the shaman declares that Ginju's presence in the tribe is the reason the Gods are angry. Ginju and Riga are forced to leave immediately, before the end of the market. But the leopard remains in the nearby jungle attacking people and livestock.

The Indians speak their native tongues, and no translation is offered, at least not directly. A narrator explains what's happening. This intensifies the film's documentary feel.

We don't get to know the characters. It wouldn't fit the film's documentary style. We're on the outside looking in. It's a highly unusual film about a primitive people that is largely unknown. After watching the film I checked Wikipedia to find out more about the Muria, and they have some strange sexual practises which aren't mentioned in the film.

Knocking (2 Stars)

This is the 33rd film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

Molly is a woman who suffers from paranoid delusions. She's recently been released from hospital, but she's still in regular contact with her doctor. She has an apartment on the eighth floor of a large building. She frequently hears knocking on the ceiling. She visits the people who live above her, but everyone says there isn't anyone knocking. Sometimes she hears a woman crying for help. She rings the police, but no evidence of a trapped woman is found. Nobody believes her because of her history of mental health issues.

I found the film disturbing. It's not a subject matter that I like to watch.

The Seventh Seal (5 Stars)

The disillusioned knight Antonius Block, played by Max Von Sydow, is asking a lot of God. This privilege wasn't even given to Moses. When Moses asked to see God's face, he was told that no man can look upon God's face and live, so he was only allowed to see God from behind.

I can relate to Antonius. He was young and idealistic when he went to fight in the Crusades, probably still a teenager. He was newly married, but he was convinced that it was God's will to leave his wife behind and go to liberate Jerusalem. It should have been a short fight, but he was gone for 10 years. He witnessed a lot of pain and suffering, and he personally was responsible for a lot of it. The doubts came. First he asked himself if all the killing was God's will. Then he asked himself if God even existed.

Antonius returns to Sweden, accompanied by his faithful squire Jöns. The squire has no doubts. He never believed in God anyway. Life is easy for atheists. "Eat, drink and be merry". Jöns takes his pleasures wherever he finds them. He sees through the church's lies before Antonius. Jöns is the first to recognise the priest who told Antonius to join the Crusades. He's now a scavenger who steals the jewellery from dead bodies.

And there are a lot of dead bodies. Sweden has been hit by the Plague. Wherever Antonius and Jöns go, they find bodies lying unburied. The Plague was bad, very bad, but the panic caused by the Plague was worse. The church claims that it's God's punishment, and there are processions of men and women whipping themselves to win God's favour for the next life. Women considered to be witches are being burnt at the stake. Antonius staggers through the suffering, searching for answers, but not the church's answers. He wants to meet God Himself and talk to Him.

Antonius doesn't meet God, but he meets Death, in the form of a man dressed in black. Not even Death will give him answers about God's purpose; all he says is that it's Antonius' time to die. Antonius challenges Death to a game of chess. If he wins he will be allowed to live. They play a few moves every day, while Antonius goes about his business, seeking for the mysteries of life. Death doesn't give him a chance to escape. Wherever Antonius goes, Death follows him, disguised as one of the people around him.

I wouldn't play chess with Death. I'm sure he's a brilliant player, more than a match for the current world champion. (How many of you can name him without googling?) I might offer to play Backgammon with Death, because the roll of the dice might give me a small chance of victory. But what's the point? Longevity was never one of my goals. I used to want to die before I was 30; then before I was 40; then before I was 50. Now my life is dragging on aimlessly. I'm not foolish enough to want to kill myself, but when Death comes for me I'll laugh in his face.

"Take me now, if you must. Or let's play one last game of Backgammon".

Max Von Sydow
10 April 1929 – 8 March 2020

"The Seventh Seal" was made in 1957. Now, 63 years later, Death has come for Max Von Sydow. Was the film just a job, or did it inspire him to search for the meaning of life? Were his remaining 63 years long enough? I fear that no man ever lives enough to find the answers he seeks.

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Border (5 Stars)

"Love between the ugly is the most beautiful love of all".

That's a quote from a song by Todd Rundgren, written in 1973. I couldn't get it out of my head after watching this film. It's true. Customs officer Tina and the mystery man Vore both look ugly, according to the usual aesthetic standards, but they fall in love at first sight.

I went to see the film while I was on holiday in Birmingham, accompanied by six members of the Birmingham Film Group. I told them it was good, praising it as ecstatically as I could without giving away any spoilers. When we walked out they all agreed with me. On the surface it might seem like a horror story, but it's really a magical fairy tale with a love story at its core.

Usually I groan when a film poster says something like "Made by the producers of <fill-in-the-blank>". In this case the reference to the screenwriter of "Let the right one in", John Ajvide Lindqvist, is fully appropriate. The similarities in the themes are unmistakable. Saying any more would give the story away.

I realise I've written very little about the film. I don't think it would be fair to say more. All I want is to recommend the film as something everyone should see, whatever your taste in films.

I wrote this review on March 21st, but I backdated the post to the day I watched the film.

Border (5 Stars)

This is the 16th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

Tina works as a customs official in the harbour of Kapellskär in Sweden. She has a special ability which makes her suitable for her job. She can smell evil in people and things. In the film's first few minutes she uncovers a paedophile when she smells illegal films on his phone's memory card.

Tina isn't in a relationship because she considers herself ugly. Does she even look like a woman in the photo? She's an outsider because she can do things nobody else can but also doesn't look like anyone else. That's what she thinks, anyway. A passenger called Vore arrives from Finland who looks and acts like her.

I daren't say any more for fear of giving away spoilers. All I can say is that it's a love story. It's a beautiful love story, but it's also a very unique story. It's Sweden's entry for next year's Foreign Language category. It really deserves to win.

The Unthinkable (4 Stars)

This is the fifth film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

The film tells two stories. The first story is a family drama. Björn loves his son Alex but is unable to show it. As a result Alex runs away to Stockholm, leaving behind Anna, the girl he loves. Over the next ten years Alex becomes a world famous keyboard player. He returns to his home town Vanga to buy the piano from his local church, because he believes it has more soul than the expensive keyboards he already owns. He walks into the church and finds Anna, now married with a child, sitting and playing the piano he wants.

The second story is an attack on Sweden by Russia shortly after Alex's arrival in Vanga. At first it looks like terrorist attacks that are blowing up Sweden's power plants, but then there's an invasion of dark clad soldiers in helicopters attacking the remaining power plants in person. In addition, biological weapons are used that infect anyone who is caught in the rain.

The battles with the invading soldiers bring Björn, Alex and Anna back together.

The film effectively shows the terror and confusion of people caught in a modern war. Nobody knows for certain what's happening. In rural areas people aren't even aware there's a war and think that it's just an accident that has turned off the power.

At the end of the film there's footage of Vladimir Putin acting like he knows nothing about a war against Sweden.

The realism of this film is overwhelming. Vladimir Putin wants a war to extend Russian influence, but he's biding his time until he thinks the West is too weak to defend itself. After the Baltic countries have fallen, Sweden will be the first western European country to be attacked. No other country will defend Sweden if Putin can persuade them that Russia isn't doing anything.

Let the right one in (5 Stars)

This is my Halloween Challenge film #3, which I watched today on Germany's June 17th holiday. I'm sure my German readers understand what I'm talking about. One of my university lecturers once said, "On the 17th of June we used to sit and think about the revolution. Now we have cream cakes and coffee". That was a profound statement that I've never been able to forget. That doesn't apply to me. Today I had coffee and tiramisu.

I'll start this review with a question to my male readers. If you fell in love with a girl and then found out she's really a boy, would you still love her? Romantically, I mean. If not, how would you react? Would you run away from her in horror or downgrade the relationship to a safe  just friends level?

This is the dilemma that 12-year-old Oskar has to deal with. His parents are divorced and he lives with his mother in a drab housing block in a suburb of Stockholm. He has no friends. He's bullied at school, and he dreams of one day taking revenge. In a creepy scene he pretends that a tree is one of his schoolmates and stabs it repeatedly with a knife. He looks like he's going to grow up to be one of the school classroom shooters that we sometimes hear about. Don't blame the boy, blame the bullies.

A 12-year-old girl moves in next door. She never claims to be a girl, Oskar just assumes it, even though her name is Eli, a man's name in Sweden. Eli even hints that she might not be, but she doesn't openly deny it. When Oskar finally sees the proof of Eli's gender he doesn't back away from the relationship.

"Let the right one in" is more than a mixed up pre-teen romance. Eli is a vampire, and when Oskar asks her if she really is 12 she replies, "Yes, but I've been 12 for a long time". The two young lovers are drawn together by their loneliness, but in another way they're opposites. Oskar is a meek boy who dreams of becoming a killer, whereas Eli is a killer who regrets having to kill.

Tomas Alfredson had a unique way of directing the film. The actors, including Kare Hedebrant (Oskar) and Lina Leandersson (Eli), weren't allowed to read the script. Before a scene he read the lines aloud to the actors and they had to speak them while they were still fresh. However, in the finished version Lina's voice was considered too high pitched to portray a character with ambiguous gender, so her voice was overdubbed by another 12-year-old actress, Elif Ceylan.

This is a beautiful romantic film, with just enough violence for it to qualify as a horror film.

As you can see from this photo, when Kare and Lina were re-united for an awards ceremony in 2010, by the time she was 14 there was no doubt about Lina's gender. She changed a lot in two years.

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The Girl who kicked the Hornets' Nest (2 Stars)

This is the third part of the Millennium trilogy. It begins at the point the second part left off, showing Lisbeth being delivered to hospital to be treated for the gunshot wounds she received at the end of the second film. She spends more than half of the film lying in her hospital bed, hardly the right place for a film's title character.

The film falls flat after the first two parts. At its core it's a courtroom drama, even though more time is spent gathering evidence than in the courtroom itself. Lisbeth has been charged with the murder of her father. We, the viewers, already know that she's innocent. We already know everything about the secret operations surrounding him in the 1970's. There's no real mystery, everything was revealed in the last film. All we see is the reporter Mikael Blomkvist and his friends scrambling to find evidence to prove what we already know. To me this is extremely boring. According to the quote on the film poster above, David Edwards of England's "Daily Mirror" called this "the thriller of the decade". I try my best to respect other people's opinions, I really do, but in this case I doubt his professional judgement.

The Girl who played with Fire (3½ Stars)

This is the second part of the Millennium Trilogy. I reviewed the first part last month. It takes place slightly more than a year after the end of the last film. The Millennium magazine is continuing successfully under Mikael Blomqvist and his team. Lisbeth is still abroad. A junior reporter is almost finished with an investigation on the kidnapping and trafficking of young women from former Soviet Union states to Sweden to work as prostitutes. The report will be a big scandal, since he has uncovered that the trafficking has been sanctioned by top Swedish politicians, judges and police. In one of the coincidences so common in films, Lisbeth chooses this time to return to Stockholm. The reporter and his girlfriend are murdered, and Lisbeth is framed.

In the first half of the film the emphasis is on Mikael's investigations into the sex-trafficking. Lisbeth is in the background since she has gone into hiding. As the film progresses the emphasis is taken off the sex-trafficking, and the film concentrates on Lisbeth. We see that she has a surprising connection to the trafficking.

I don't doubt that this is a good film, but somehow it fails to grip me. Today I watched and enjoyed it, but I can't see myself watching it again. It's difficult to say why. Maybe it's the gritty realism of the film. There is no fantasy element or exaggerated action. It's all very down to Earth.

Here are two film trailers. If you watch them both you'll think they're for two different films. The first trailer is the original Swedish trailer with subtitles. In my opinion it gives a good impression of the film. The second trailer is made in America and shows scenes out of context to make it look like an action film. Now do you see what I mean by good and bad trailers?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (4 Stars)

Have you ever suffered from a severe case of writer's block? That's me with this film. I've been staring at this blank page for over an hour. Let me just make a few comments, and maybe I'll build up momentum as I go along.

This is the first film in the Millennium Trilogy, three books written by Swedish author Stieg Larsson but not published till after his death. The three films were released in Sweden in quick succession, between March and November 2009.

The films have long fascinated me, so when I saw they were on sale cheap on Blu-ray I grabbed them. After watching the first film I'm not disappointed, I liked it a lot, but it's not what I expected. I thought it would be an action film. Not at all. It's a criminal investigation, like a police detective story, except the person investigating is a reporter, not a policeman.

The story: Mikael Blomkvist is a reporter for a magazine called Millennium. He has investigated a billionaire, but he was set up. False information was deliberately fed to him, and now he has been sued for libel and is sentenced to three months in prison. But the sentence will not begin until six months later. Is that usual in Sweden? I couldn't imagine a prison sentence in England being deferred by more than a few days. Usually it begins immediately after conviction.

During these six months he is hired by another industrialist, Henrik Vanger. Forty years ago, in 1966, his 16-year-old niece Harriet had disappeared during a family meeting, and he assumes that one of his family members has killed her. The police has long given up on the case, but Vanger thought Blomkvist might be able to unearth something. And he does. He finds notes in Harriet's diary that point to religiously motivated murders that had been committed between 1949 and 1965.

So where does the girl with the tattoo fit in? Vanger had previously hired a company to check up on Blomkvist, to decide if he was suitable for the job. The company used a computer hacker called Lisbeth Salander to spy on him. After discovering he was being watched Blomkvist asked Salander to help him with the case. She's the one with the tattoo.

A very good film. I wonder if the recent Hollywood remake with Daniel Craig even comes close? Somehow I'm scared to find out.

Click here to view the trailer. If "Van Helsing" has a good trailer, this is a bad trailer. It wrongly gives the impression that this is an action film by just picking out the very few exciting moments.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [Guest Writer] (4½ Stars)

Be warned that you may find minor spoilers in this review. 

The story: 
Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and rebellious computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) team up to investigate the unsolved disappearance of wealthy Henrik Vangers (Sven-Bertil Taube) teen niece (Ewa Froling), only to uncover dark secrets about Vanger's powerful family. Niels Arden Oplev directs this 2009 Swedish drama thriller based on the first novel from Stieg Larsson's est selling trilogy.

I have been intrigued by this movie since I first got wind of it. I can't quite remember when, but I clearly remember browsing the shelves of Blockbuster for a good movie to watch when I came across this movie and it's interesting and compelling cover shot on the box. I admit to picking it up, skimming the summary and tossing it back down with a shake of my head thinking that it couldn't possibly interest me - that it would be too slow-paced for me to get into, that since I wasnt aware of the actor/actresses' abilities that I didn't want to take the chance of buying a dud. I hate wasting my money and only spend it on things that I know I will enjoy and be satisfied with. I also remember flipping through channels and coming across it again. Remembering the interesting movie cover, I stopped for a bit to see what it was about since this wouldn't cost me a dime and within about five minutes I was flipping to another channel. The minute I realized that it was a foreign film I firmly tossed the idea out of my head that it would ever be an enjoyable film to suit my tastes.

I've probably stated this in previous posts and I'm sure I've told this to Mike quite a few times but I'll state it here as well: I really don't like foreign films outside Asian cinema. I've debated this with Mike on several occasions or rather we discussed it and I have come to the definite conclusion that I don't think I could ever enjoy a German film. I have nothing against the them as a country - Hitler and Nazi's aside - but the language is so harsh to my ears, that I would constantly be distracted and unable to truly immerse myself in the film. While this may seem totally irrelevant, I felt the same about this movie as well. I didn't know what language it was in and didn't even care to guess, but given my history with foreign films, I decided that I wasn't in the mood to take the chance. It makes me wonder why I decided to watch it while I was browsing on Netflix tonight for something to watch. I had heard there was an American adaption of this film starring Daniel Craig but they didn't have it listed. It was a bit unfortunate, but at the same time I'm a little glad that I got to see the Swedish adaption first instead.

I had read the reviews and since it got such high ratings I decided to take the plunge and I'm glad I did. Many of the reviews I read went on about Noomi Rapace, the female lead's, acting abilities. I thought to myself, "Oh I just have to see what all the fuss is about." I can honestly say that the praise was all well deserved and I'll add my own to the mix! It took me a few minutes to get used to adjusting to the language and reading the subtitles but years of watching subbed Anime and Asian films really helped me in tuning it out and getting into the story more. It starts off a bit slow and I found myself only marginally interested in the male lead's predicament because I'm waiting for Noomi's first appearance the entire time. Perhaps I wasn't giving Michael his due, but, to be honest, it was Noomi's appearance on the cover of that movie box so many years ago that caught my interest anyways. She had always been the main lead for me from the beginning so I guess it can't be helped.

When she finally made her appearance, I wasn't disappointed. I don't know what it is about her and her character. I'm used to seeing people in outrageous Gothic/punk attire with enough piercings to hang a curtain from or enough tattoos to exhibit as a one-person art show. So I don't think it was quite her outward appearance but the vibe that she gave off in the movie that captured me. Perhaps I let the opinions of the reviews I read influence me. Whatever the case, I was captured from the first. I will say that this movie is definitely not for the faint of heart for some. I've seen hundreds of horror movies with enough blood to fill an ocean but this made me uncomfortable on a way that no horror movie has ever been able to. My mother often says that movies where the horrors are more realistic (I.E. stalkers, rapists, etc) is much scarier than any hulking immortal figure with a machete or a scarred man with a glove of knives ready to kill you in your dreams ever could be. I have to admit that I'm starting to better understand what she said so long ago. At the time, I was quite young and just brushed it off as crazy talk for old people. Maybe this means I should start reserving my seat in a retirement home because this made me, cringe in a way that I can't remember doing. I actually had a hard time watching in some areas of the film (well particularly one or two areas) and I've seen quite a few graphic scenes in my day.


This movie contains graphic rape and while many movies usually just allude to raping in some other way, somehow the director and Noomi managed to capture these scenes so vividly that I found myself fidgeting in my seat, glancing away from my screen and wanting to take my headphones off to drown out her screams. The prevalent theme seems to be abuse and violence against women. You will notice it in almost every faucet but of the movie - from Lisbeth's past and family history to the plot of the movie. Honestly, I was surprised and stunned that I found myself staring so avidly at the screen, wanting to know what would happen next. Sometimes my hand would itch on the mouse to skip through the movie at a part I found a bit dragging to find out what would happen next but was afraid I would miss something good in doing so. All in all, I wouldn't say that I'm the hugest fan of drama thrillers. I much prefer high impact, fast-paced action and thriller movies so it surprised me how much I enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend this movie to everyone out there. I'm looking forward to seeing the others although I think I'll wait a bit before I see the next movie. I'll go through all the foreign adaptions because I'm hooked on Noomi now before I see the 2011 American remake/adaption. I'm a bit leery of it because of the US's obssession with remakes lately has gotten a bit out of hand and a lot of the movies they have made lately have been....subpar to my tastes. Since it has Daniel Craig in it, a favorite actor of mine since I took notice of him in his role as James Bond, I'll give it a shot and the benefit of the doubt.

The Passion of Anna (3 Stars)

This is a difficult film to watch. It represents the peak of director Ingmar Bergman's alienation techniques. While ostensibly a drama about four characters living on the remote Swedish island Fårö, it's actually about the four actors who play the roles and the way they represent the characters. The film is interrupted by interviews with the actors about how they understand the characters they play, and we see a stark contrast. The actors are all friendly, likeable people. The characters they play are distant, unable to relate to one another, except through acts of violence. They are as remote as the island they live on.

The film ends with the main character pacing up and down, alone in the remote landscape, with Bergman saying in voiceover "This time he was called Andreas Winkelman". Implied is that in the next film he will play a different role.

What is Bergman trying to say? Most reviewers concentrate on the action in the film, such as the love affairs and the lynching of the man suspected of killing animals. I believe we should think about the metafilm instead. Bergman knows that very few of the film's viewers live in an environment like Fårö, an island with a population of only 500 people. Despite the openness of the scenery, the atmosphere is claustrophobic. Bergman is asking the viewers if they could live in such a place. Would the viewers also degenerate and become unable to reveal their emotions? Would they undergo the same metamorphosis as the actors, who are portrayed as both physically and psychologically crippled?