Såsom i en spegel (Through a Glass Darkly) from 1961 is the first movie in Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy A Film Trilogy. A trilogy about Bergman’s personal relationship to God and religion. The film is an interesting milestone in Bergman’s career and life since he started to have a different approach to making movies and he also discovered Fårö, the island he fell in love with and later move to. He also won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. The film is about a family that are meeting up on a remote island. The father, David is a writer who have just come home from writing a novel in Switzerland, a novel that exploits his daughter Karin’s schizophrenia. Something she discovers on the island, there is now a tense feeling between the family, and Minus, the youngest son is having problems feeling acceptance by his father. The movie plays in the typical style of a Bergman movie, with tense dialogue, beautiful photography (by Sven Nykvist) and great acting. Personally I find the movie worth just watching because of my favorite actor couple, Max Von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand. Harriet Andersson and Lars Passgård are also great as siblings. The acting is especially evident in the movie since these four actors are the only actors, creating a very theatrical approach while also making the audience come closer to the characters. A very inspiring movie to say the least.
Considering how many movies I’ve been able to watch during this semester, this weekend has been a productive movie watchin weekend for me; I’ve seen three movies so far (or maybe two and a half since one was a collection of shorts). On Friday I watched Rataouille and Pixar Short Film Collection, not too much to say, entertaining and typical Disney, I found Ratatouille especially to be quite classic Disney, but I don’t really know what made me feel that way. I needed to balance this entertainment and easyness out with Jim Jarmusch’s 1984 indie film Stranger Than Paradise, a movie about a stiff relationship between Hungarian cousins. The movie is quite theatrical, many of the scenes are long and take place on the same set. The movie starts with a long scene at the main character Willie’s apartment and then turns into a sort of road movie with Willie and his friend Eddie. The two friends and later Willie’s cousin Eva go on a road trip to New York, Cleveland and Florida and the movie presents these places as very similar. It is a pretty stiff film, not too much happens but there is always that tension throughout the movie that Jim Jarmusch is so good at. I can definitely recommend this movie if you are a fan of Jarmusch or independent film.
Kafka (1991) by Steven Soderbergh is a strange movie. Jeremy Irons plays Kafka (which he does excellently, like always), set in the very appropriate location of the old district of Prague. The location is in itself a reason to watch this movie, with harsh noir contrasts shot beautifully with black and white film. Kafka’s friend is found dead and he gets involved in an underground resistance group that tries to end a secret set of scientists who do very cruel experiments to human beings so they can create the perfect human. It is hard to explain the story, because it is filled of strange moments, that just have to be watched. Let’s just say Kafka looks more like James bond than one of most famous writers ever made. I can definitely recommend this movie to anyone, it is such a fantastic mix of moods, from horror to action to science fiction, although never really sentimental or romantic (which might fit with Kafka’s real personality).
Although I haven’t gotten into this website in depth it seems to be great. It’s a website for young Nordic film makers and is sponsored by the different Nordic film institutes, and it is in English. It seems to have great articles, and lists of schools (especially good if you are looking for exchange, if they’re on our school’s list that is). If you sign up you can also watch different film and video productions. Enjoy.
Guldbaggen is the name of the Swedish cinema prize, similar to the Academy Awards in a certain way. This is not an event I have ever been interested in to be honest, my opinion of Swedish film lately has been: dull, uninteresting, lack of quality and quite frankly just plain bad in some cases. This is absolutely not something I feel generally of Swedish film, historically we have had great success with many, many great works up until the 21th century. I feel that since the millennium shift there has been a lot of quantity in the business, with a very low rate of quality. The one (of the few) responsible for that little bit of quality in my opinion is Roy Andersson. His latest movie, Du Levande or You, the Living brought home the most prestigious awards, including best movie, best screenplay as well as best directing. I’m extremely happy he got these awards, it is so good that quality film is really being awarded. The honorary prize went to Gösta Ekman who without doubt deserves it. A true entertainer indeed (you probably need to be Swedish to know who he is).
Studying in a creative field, such as film, I find it very important not to forget what kind of work that inspired me and made me choose this field. To keep my interest up I need to go back to these works once in a while. For me, many of Woody Allen’s movies have definitely inspired me to want to make my own movies. This weekend I watched Annie Hall (made in 1977), one of his best, and of course most famous films. Maybe what is most notably about it is his way of storytelling; scenes jump in different directions, we move between his mind and the film’s reality, all of a sudden Alvy (Allen’s character) turns to the camera and asks or complains to the audience. Alvy even manages to make situations maybe all of us has wished to participate in, such as the time he argues with a man in the line to the cinema about Marshall McLuhan; the man obnoxiously claims he knows a lot about McLuhan’s theories because he teaches a course in media, Alvy questions him and then brings out the real McLuhan from behind one of the posters, McLuhan then tells the man he has no idea about his theories (here is a clip of it). It is scenes like these that make this movie such a masterpiece. It shows the extreme control Woody Allen has over the medium. No wonder it won four Oscars, and has been such an important film for comedies, or romantic films, even made today.
If anyone would like, please post a comment about some work that has inspired you to choose your program or field of interest. That would be very interesting.
When I look back to last year. I realize it was a great year. Culturally.
In the summer I went back to Sweden. On a trip to Stockholm I went to the most memorable exhibition of the year; Speed For Life. It was an exhibition by fashion photographer Mikael Jansson. But instead of exhibiting fashion photographs, Jansson showed the result of a three year long project where he has followed the Formula 1 race all over the world documenting it his own style. The photographs were beautiful, and amazing.
Back in Vancouver I finally got to see my favourite painter’s Georgia O’Keeffe’s work. In a great exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery her work was presented along with some famous photographs of her by her husband Alfred Steiglitz. The exhibition was very satisfying. I did miss a little bit some of her city paintings, which I find her most interesting work, but what was shown was inspiring enough.
Many great films have come out from last year, and I have many to catch up with. Films I have seen and enjoyed has been Death Proof, Lust, Caution and The Darjeeling Limited, but the best one is Roy Andersson’s You, The Living, a movie that just won’t leave my head.
To finish it off, the best trip for me 2007 was to the Scottish island Islay, a little island in the Atlantic ocean that is full of single malt Whisky distilleries such as Laphroaig, Bowmore and Lagavulin. This is where I also made the discovery of the year; Caol Ila 12 year old single malt, my favourite whisky so far.
There. Now I can move on and appreciate what has to come in the new year.
Posted by Ville 
Posted by Ville 
Posted by Ville 
