Bergmanesque

Elva took Carol and me see to a Swedish film shown last night as part of the current European Film Festival in Ottawa. In Sweden the film is known as Masjävlar; elsewhere, as The Delacarlians. Directed by Maria Blom in 2004, it won three Guldbagge awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Actress (Kajsa Ernst, playing one of the main character's sisters). The story concerning three sisters, as in Chekhov, was supposed to be a comedy, though before the lights were dimmed the Swedish Ambassador warned us the humour would be black and that we would be reminded of the films of Ingmar Bergman as we watched it. (Ottawa's EU festival is dedicated to the memory of Bergman who died on July 30th this year.) I thought of Ibsen, too. It must be something to do with those long, dark winters. The northern europeans are a gloomy people, prone to desperate thoughts. They try to laugh at themselves, but end up sobbing.

As soon as the film got started, I knew that one of the characters in it was going to die. It only remained to be seen which one and whether it would be a murder, a suicide or a death by natural causes.

Don't get me wrong; the film was laugh-aloud funny in places. Mia, having escaped the back of beyond to become a jet-setting systems architect in the big city (Stockholm), travels back to the family home for her father's birthday party. Although she hasn't seen most of these people for the last fifteen years, nobody asks her any questions about herself because it's quite beyond them to imagine how she lives and what she does now; in any case they are too full of their own lives to think about hers. All the same, the bonds that connect Mia to her origins are stronger than she thinks.

As I said to Carol, there was probably not one person in the audience who could not relate to the theme of this film. Family tensions are not unique to the Swedish hinterland!