User Reviews

Yes, this is another one of those movies that has become very popular in Sweden the last couple of years: amateur actors, not much dialog, angst, Swedish suburban and shaky hand-held camera. And yes, the intellectual critics tend to love them - what can be more intellectual than a little redheaded boy quoting Thoreau?

The little redheaded boy, an immigrant, a young father, a successful man that seem to have everything - all live in the same block. We follow them through their everyday life. Soon it's clear that the woman stand for the civilized way of living, trying to guide them in the right (civilized) direction. They are offered a normal life, and they are all rejecting it. The young fathers parents will let him stay with them - as I understood it - if he behaves. But he chooses not to. He beats up his neighbor, runs off in the woods. He carries his baby with him all the time, making it a part of him - he can't relate to anyone, except his child. The redheaded boy steals a gold watch from his mother. The mother knows this, and she kindly begs him to help her find it and explains how much the watch means to her. Despite this, the boy throws the watch into a well. The immigrant has a job at a factory since 30 years back, but we see him hunt fish with a spear in a stream nearby the neighborhood. He sleeps out in the woods, on the ground.

You can choose to interpret it as a movie about men seeking their origin. Questioning the way of life that they have been taught. There are hundreds of movies with this theme, and personally I don't think that we need another one. Out in the woods, the lonely hunter - it's not a fresh way of looking at genders. If there had been a few woman in the same position as the men, it would've been easier for me to like it. But what's good about this movie is that it forces the viewer to think. And in contrast to horrible Into the Wild, it doesn't romanticize. The characters are sad and no one is a obvious hero. And maybe that what it is trying to say. That no one is a hero: right and wrong is just empty words.

This film has locally been hailed by the critics as something really, really good, but in fact it is devoid of dialog, action, and movement forward. And there isn't an iota of humor, it is just dull, and boring.

The setting is a Swedish villa suburb, where a little kid called Sebastian, walks around and looking at people and watching their behavior (sometimes commenting who they are, and their relation to the others, in this little group of houses). Sebastian has a lot of antics of his own, some weird, some just queer, as queer as everyone else in this little society, including the one and only immigrant. That Sebastian's monologue, at times, is very literary, very non-child-like, I could buy for a while, but not for long. In a fairly complex set of scenes Sebastian's mother ask him if he has stolen her gold watch, which he denies, and then we see him fooling around with it, till he very deliberately drops it into the sewer, still no explanation.

So for a while, say ten minutes, into the movie I can buy it, but then it gets too much: there are explanations, like why one man drenches his grown up son with a hose, and then fights with him in the garden, it is just a lot of scenes, sometimes accompanied by choir music, or other high-strung music/singing.

Weird, very weird. Some people fight, some set fire to their furniture, and one man, who lives with his parents, but has no key to the house, walks around with his infant son on his arm, day after day, till he attacks a guy with a paddle, just because the poor victim had looked at him, and then the man walks into the wood, still with his infant on his arm, and then seems to try to drown himself and his son - still no explanation. Poor child actor!

Someone here commented that is a boring flick, and it sure is, and it you will be very hard pressed to find one with less story, or development. Recommend it to your enemies, not your friends! The rest is almost OK: Good acting (you're not really sure if they are acting, or not - maybe it's a mix?! OK, anyway), good sound, mostly good cutting, good cinematography (but far too much wobbly hand camera), but it doesn't help one bit.

The total lack of a story, or any kind of development, makes the film amazingly boring, and the end seems like they just ran out of film stock. The film starts with the kid's mother looking for him, and ends the same way.

There are a few cutting misses, where the time of day in one shot doesn't add up with the next, but I can live with those.

I think the reason why the Swedish movie critics gives it high points, is that movies they don't understand they give full points, as they don't want to appear thick, or, possibly, they are close friends with those involved. Or both!

This happens again, and again, and then after a year or two the same critics gives the same movies much lower points, especially if the movie in question has been a total disaster in the cinemas.

These famous critics maybe know these people, who they know try hard to make good films, and then, quite often, the end result still becomes a real disaster. Like this one.

This film, by an acclaimed director who made other very worthwhile films, is very likely his best film.

It is very uniquelly put together - a somber and real outlook at life from every facet. The actors all do an incredible job, and the cinematography, cutting and editing is beautiful and very unique and characteristic. All done in a very modest and interesting manner.

Overall, it is a very unique and beautiful piece that I would of course very much recommend for any lover of film, and a great testament to the capabilities of this great director.

A very unique piece of art by a true auteur!