settima

Sweden

Nattlek [Night Games] (Mai Zetterling, 1966)

Mar

8

International Women's Day

Nattlek (1966)

Jan (Jörgen Lindström) and his mother (Ingrid Thulin) share a bed while she reads him a bedtime story. DP: Rune Ericson.

A mother for International Women's Day

 

When returning home to the castle he grew up in, Jan attempts to free himself from the suffocating clutches of his neurotic mother.

 

This film was the final straw for Shirley Temple; she resigned from the board of the San Francisco Film Festival calling Zetterling's film “pornography for profit”.

Ole dole doff [Eeny Meeny Miny Moe / Who Saw Him Die?] (Jan Troell, 1968)

Feb

10

Scholastica

Ole dole doff (1968)

A reaction shot shows the pupils' faces. While the girls show some sort of remorse, the boys are deadpan. DP: Jan Troell .

A film about teaching on the day of Saint Scholastica, patron saint of Benedictine nuns, education, and convulsive children.

 

Companion piece to Vilgot Sjöman's 491 (1964). An anti-authoritarian teacher who is plagued by nightmares, slowly unravels.

Ormen: Berättelsen om Iréne [Ormen / The Serpent] (Hans Abramson, 1966)

Jan

29

Lunar New Year – 巳

Ormen: Berättelsen om Iréne (1966)

The German poster. An illustration of a nude woman with a serpent's head. DP: Mac Ahlberg.

Snakes (巳) in celebration of Lunar New Year.

 

Ormen is an adaptation of the first two chapters of the novel Berättelsen om Iréne (Stig Dagerman, 1945).

 

In an army barrack, a sergeant is bitten by a snake. A soldier hides the animal in his bag in order to blackmail his superior. Iréne – who works in the same barrack's mess and is the soldier's lover – pushes her mother off a train during a quarrel about the daughter's lack of morals.

 

Dagerman's novel is a metaphor of Sweden's uncomfortable position in a post-WW2 world (it had declared itself neutral, which by default made it complicit in helping the Nazis). Due to its violence and nudity, outside its homecountry the film adaptation mostly played porn theatres.

Les créatures [The Creatures] (Agnès Varda, 1966)

Aug

29

Les créatures (1966)

Mylène (Catherine Deneuve) and Edgar (Michel Piccoli) Piccoli playing checkers at a small table. DPs: Willy Kurant, William Lubtchansky & Jean Orjollet.

“Everything is rotten. Decadence is everywhere. Why fight it?”

Ansiktet [The Face / The Magician] (Ingmar Bergman, 1958)

Jul

14

Ansiktet (1958)

Granny Vogler (Naima Wifstrand) telling a sobbing Sara (Bibi Andersson) that yes, she may indeed be a witch. DP: Gunnar Fischer.

“I see what I see, and I know what I know. But nobody believes me.”

– Granny Vogler

Doktor Glas [Doctor Glas] (Mai Zetterling, 1968)

May

27

akvavit

Doktor Glas (1968)

A man (Per Oscarsson) raises a glass and peers though its ribs and liquids. DP: Rune Ericson.

Raggare! [Blackjackets] (Olle Hellbom, 1959)

Apr

3

Raggare! (1959)

Bibban, a beaming blonde (Christina Schollin) in a petticoat, at a small bar table smoking a cigarette. There's an half-empty glass and a full ashtray next to her. Just offscreen the object of her smile: a smartly dressed man reaching for his glass. DPs: Frank Dalin & Bertil Palmgren.

Hägringen [Mirage] (Peter Weiss, 1959)

Feb

12

Hägringen (1959)

An uncomfortably close close-up up of a man's mouth eating something. Tongue and mouth are visible. He's got stubble. DP: Gustaf Mandal.

Les créatures [The Creatures] (Agnès Varda, 1966)

Aug

14

Les créatures (1966)

Edgar (Michel Piccoli) and Mylène (Catherine Deneuve) all dressed up for a home-cooked meal. On the wall behind them a huge framed mounted crab. DPs: Willy Kurant, William Lubtchansky & Jean Orjollet.

491 (Vilgot Sjöman, 1964)

Jul

7

Global Forgiveness Day

491 (1964)

One of the juvenile delinquents carving a simple arithmetical calculation into a desk during the Reverend's lecture about forgiveness. DP: Gunnar Fischer.

Early 60s, Sweden. A social experiment. Six hopelessly criminal juveniles are packed in a guesthouse – cynically named Objectivity – and loosely supervised by social workers and a reverend. The public servants speak of a new lease on life, God's servant of how Jesus forgives; all speak on their own behalf. We follow the young men closely and sense their need to break out, to be young, to be out of that house. We learn that their world, in or out, is eternally equally irrelevant.

“Jesus Christ has promised to forgive you 490 times, whatever you have done… because those were his words. But about the 491st time… He has given no words. None at all.”

– Reverend Mild

Vilgot Sjöman's 491 is an extremely, bleak, aggressive, and hopeless depiction of youth in postwar Sweden. Forgiveness is a tool of power, a method of control. And as empty as a repetitive lecture.