Directed by Roy Andersson, "A Swedish Love Story" stars Rolf Sohlman as Par, a fifteen year old kid who's madly in love with local girl Annika (Ann Kylin). Around our young lovers swirls a world of adults. Alienated, disillusioned, broke, tired, and devoid of hope, these adults seem on the brink of meltdown. Par and Annika, of course, are the opposite. Madly in love, they see the world through idealised eyes; everything's gold. Watch them dance.
Novice actors, Rolf and Kylin lend the film a rare fragility. They're awkward, confused, their characters' romance conveyed with amorous glances and simple exchanges. Andersson's direction is low key. Very low key. The film moves like a whisper, a teenage dream, moments of whimsy and bounce periodically giving way to adults who grumble and grouse. Damn them. Damn those pesky adults, with their "problems" and their "baggage". Why they so blue? "Humanity is composed of a bunch of bastards," one grotesque adult grumbles. "Money is all that matters," another moans.
But Par and Annika don't notice. How can they? They're like dandelion dust, fluttering, playing in an adolescent fun-yard, touching bodies, experiencing one another, probing and prodding and basking in all that is adolescent and awkward and oh so soft and gentle and my oh my there's my first kiss.
To Andersson, Par and Annika are creatures still in a state of innocence. They're Adam and Eve before the fall. Lif and Lifthrasir in their secret forest, though around them the mundanity of maturity heaves its massive bulk. It's coming. But will our young couple turn into monsters? Will they be like daddy and mommy and their dour aunts and uncles? Of course not. They have hope, and zest and look good in miniskirts, tight jeans and when posed on-top motorcycles. They're rebels, baby. They've got things figured out. The world's their oyster. Blue jeans and push up bras. They're the future and the future is bright.
Yeah, right.
Interestingly, while Andersson's going for a balancing act – the shipwreck of adulthood juxtaposed with the blissful naivety of youth – for the purposes of advocating youthful optimism, the effect is the opposite. You want to slap these kids. You want to tell Annika to stop dressing like a hooker and Par to stop trying to look like James Dean. You ain't cool, kid.
Incidentally, though perhaps not surprisingly, once you see how it aestheticises youthfulness, copies of the film frequently turn up after FBI paedophile raids. And whilst Andersson's films frequently counterpoint jaded maturity with blissful ignorance, "A Swedish Love Story's" young/old binary is a bit too simplistic. Often it's pessimists who are the most "optimistic" and the blissful who, in their self absorption, are truly "pessimistic". And of course adults are as delusional as kids, if not more so, and indeed are directly responsible for the delusions of the latter.
7.9/10 - Worth one viewing.
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