User Reviews

First shown at the Malmö Festival this film went on to acquire real kudos, not only as the winner of the Odense film festival in Denmark, but was also shown at the Tribeca, Locarna, and Flanders film festivals.

It had a short release as the short to Bowling For Columbine and is based on a very famous Swedish short story by Stig Dagerman. Dagerman was a non-conventional Swede, he was a syndo-anarchist, and is considered by many critics to be one of the first of the modern novelists in Sweden.

The short story that this is based on is an extremely powerful account of a day, supposedly normal and fun, that will lead to the death of a child due to careless speeding. (Dagerman wrote it at the behest of several Swedish insurance companies to combat a rise in dangerous driving.) This short captures that beautifully. The writing in the short story paints a very ordinary happy day that builds in tension by revealing it's ending almost immediately - but the people in the story continue to be innocent, happy, unconcerned - until the ultimate tragedy strikes.

Well shot, and very well directed - this is an excellent short that really captures the spirit of the piece, and is incredibly moving in its shots of a small child and two families who are changed forever.

For a short it carries real weight and is a triumph.

Recommended.

Stig Dagerman wrote the short it says here, though I remember it as a poem, it has a rhythm and a style which to me suggests it is a poem and in school we were taught it as a poem.

The poem/short concerns an ordinary day in Sweden which ends in tragedy. The build up is very subtle in the poem, but a bit more obvious as a short.

Stellan Skarsgård does a very nice rendition of the poem here, well modulated and not too different from the poet's own rendition (which I've heard on the radio once or twice).

The story is simple, it follows the child playing and running errands for his mother and the young couple going for a trip to the sea. This goes back and forth until they all meet tragically in the end.

This is one of the few poems I know by heart, it has stuck with me since 7th or 8th grade when we learned it at school.

This is "Att döda ett barn" or "To kill a child", an 8-minute short film that is based on a 20-th century short story by Stig Dagerman. The 2 writers and directors are Björne Larson and Alexander Skarsgård. For the latter, who is a prominent actor, it was the first and so far (as of 2015) only filmmaking effort behind the camera. This was actually a whole Skarsgård family project here as father Stellan narrates the tale and son Valter (to Stellan) plays the main character. Unfortunately, for me the narration of the story never worked well together with what we saw in this brief movie. It was certainly a truly challenging task and thumbs up for giving it a try. I would not call it a failure, but it is also not a good film and definitely nowhere near as good as it could have been.