You, the Living (2007) / Adventureland (2009) / Hot Rod (2007) / F (2010)

You, the Living / Du Levande (2007) caught my eye in the schedules as it was billed as a Swedish comedy. It was fairly amusing... and decidedly odd. There was no narrative as such, merely a collection of 'sketches' or vignettes featuring ordinary moments of daily life in a very raw, dramatic yet blackly comic style. The tone put me in mind of Sound of Noise but that was a much more linear movie, with a point to it. The indecipherable impetus behind You, the Living didn't end up making for an unsatisfying whole, I quite enjoyed the movie... I'm just unable to articulate why I liked it. Weird.

Much more straightforward was Adventureland (2009), an American comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg as a geeky kid who ends up working at the titular theme park for the summer between high school and college. While there he befriends Kristen Stewart, who plays a variation of her unreasonably mopey misery-chick schtick from the Twilight franchise but manages to be less irritating with it. Oddly he falls for and ends up dating the park's resident cool chick (in a bit reminiscent of Bandslam's geek-gets-the-girl genre subversion) but it's obvious who he should really be with. It's a slight movie with an unoriginal premise yet Adventureland is hugely enjoyable, mainly because Eisenberg is so damn charming and cute. He's like Michael Cera with less attitude. The supporting cast are a wonderful array of freaks and misfits, including a small role for Bridesmaids' Kristen Wiig, and Bill Hader (who also crops up in Hot Rod below), plus a turn by Ryan Reynolds as a likable bastard.

An evening of pizza, wine and chat at our friend's flat last Friday also involved watching the fabled Hot Rod (2007). Twice. Watching with a group of friends is not normally how I like to see a new movie, but the reverence that certain of my mates show this film made for a pretty hilarious experience. And from what I had the opportunity to see, Hot Rod turned out to be pretty hilarious, full of really silly, unexplained humour that wouldn't be out of place in The Muppets (although some of the racier stuff would need taming). Andy Samberg's daredevil/idiot lead is endearing and not just stupid, and his relationship with his stepfather, Ian McShane, is deliriously deranged - his goal is to earn enough money through stunts to save his stepfather's life... so that Rod can kick his ass. There were many bits that had us all laughing out loud, from the 'cool  beans' sequence, the wacky grilled cheese sandwich and burrito fight and my favourite, the random dancing Chinese guy who gets a montage of bill posting and crotch thrusting... It really is a movie that has to be seen to be believed. And quite rewatchable as it turns out.

While recuperating from a manky cold this week I watched the British horror/thriller simply titled F (2010) - no relation to US high school Othello adaptation, O (2001). After an opening set up that sees teacher Mr Anderson (David Schofield) head-butted by a pupil and thus more resigned and timid in his role, the movie settles in to the confines of the school campus after most of the inhabitants have gone home. Unfortunately for the cleaner, secutiry guards, headmistress, secretary, woodwork teacher, Mr Anderson, his daughter and her boyfriend, they're still in residence when a gang of hoodies turn up to kill them off, one by one. The growing menance is effected by tight camera angles, right up in the victims' faces, and some creepy choral/lullaby music when the speechless, faceless bad 'uns turn up to bash, stab, burn, maim, slice, axle-grind and generally murder all involved. There's not much character development or even really any plot after the first 10 minutes of set up, just a series of offings. No explanation is given as to why these hoodlums are committing these graphic acts or even who they are - are they connected to the guy who headbutted Mr Anderson? The script doesn't care, there are plenty of people to be bloodying up to bother with motivation. The lack of impetus leaves the film feeling a bit hollow, although it is effectively chilling. Thankfully the final scene/ethical dilemma is a real humdinger and makes the previous 80 minutes well worth the price of admission (y'know, if I'd seen it in a cinema).

Sound of Noise (2010, Leeds Town Hall)

basics...
The third and final film we saw at the International Film Festival, Sound of Noise is, like the film the previous night, difficult to describe without sounding insane. It's a Swedish crime drama, about a gang of anarchists who terrorise a city by... playing unusual pieces of music on a hospital patient, in a bank, using heavy plant machinery and on electricity powerlines. Oh and everything the group play on is rendered mute... for music-hating detective Amadeus Warnebring (Bengt Nilsson). See how hard this is to describe??

brilliant, but...

It would be a little unfair to compare Sound of Noise with Detroit Metal City as they are very different prospects, united only by an unusual approach to music and comedy and my having seen them on consecutive nights. However, Sound of Noise suffers in comparison as although it has a lot of inventive content, it takes itself far more seriously than DMC. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy Sound of Noise - I think part of my resistance is that it was a busy work week, with 3 subtitled movies one night after another... I could have done with something a bit lighter to finish the trilogy. The cast underplay the roles, keeping everything low key, not even questioning the preposterousness of the film's premise, which really helps the audience buy into the odd reality in which Warnebring and co exist. The musical compositions themselves are the movie's highlights, ingenious sequences of novel music-making that actually work as melodies. There are not enough moments of musical exhilaration though, and the characters can be frustratingly laid back.

briefly...
A weird Swedish hybrid of comedy, crime drama, musical and romance that would work better with a greater degree of knowingness.

Wallander: Series 2 (2009-10)

basics...
Picking up 3 years after the end of the first series, Krister Henriksson's final 13 cases as Kurt Wallander see the dour Swedish detective and his team in a new police house, with a couple of new cadets, Isabelle (Nina Zanjani) and Pontus (Sverrir Gudnason) and resident police prosecutor Katarina (Lena Endre), and a whole host of new crimes to solve. 

brilliant...
Wallander is back and as good as if not better than ever. Sadly lacking Johanna Sällström's Linda, following the actress' suicide, the show cleverly refuses to explain away Kurt's daughter's absence, but it is implied that she's dead - the real life tragedy gives Henriksson's portrayal as Kurt an added depth. Kurt clearly sees something of Linda in Isabelle, making him over protective of her creating some nice relationships fairly quickly with the new recruits. Of course the main relationship this series is Kurt and Katarina's will-they-won't-they attraction that is never resolved on screen. Endre provides an excellent counterpoint to Kurt and the pair are a joy to watch, whether flirting or arguing - Kurt does a good line in jealousy too. 

The other new guy, Pontus, is a hottie, and he's also got issues that thankfully don't lead him to the extremes of Stefan in the first series, though he does get beaten up and shot a lot. Nyberg (Mats Bergman) provides excellent comic relief, and in one scene, where he hugs a post-explosion Kurt, proves to be an emotional presence. With Linda gone, the focus of this series is more firmly on Kurt, allowing the character to develop further than in the first series, in his relationships with colleagues, with new dog, Jussi, and with his job, which he realises has taken over his life. The cases this season are exciting, grisly and occasionally controversial, with shootings, explosions and gas-emitting flowers adding to the excitement.

but...
There's no more Wallander! The final episode felt like a fitting end to the series, with Kurt provided a truthful and welcome conclusion that sees him finally choose his own happiness with Katarina over the job. If I had to pick an actual fault with the series it would only be that the villains all too often turned out to be foreign, whether German, Polish or Lithuanian. But that's only a minor niggle in what was an astonishingly brilliant series.

briefly...
Superior Swedish drama, with excitement, heart and a few laughs, featuring top rate acting talent. There's going to be a Wallander-shaped hole in my viewing schedule.

Steget Efter / One Step Behind (2005) & Pyramiden / The Pyramid (2007)

The final two Wallanders that were on over Christmas were theatrically released in Sweden, and thus shorter than the other mini-series, and appear to be the last in the series starring Rolf Lassgard. They’re also the best Wallander stories and productions I’ve seen so far.

One Step Behind (which comes chronologically before Firewall) is a very emotional piece of cinema, centred around Wallander’s colleague Svedberg who tragically commits suicide in the opening 10 minutes, following the discovery of a macabre scene of recently dug-up and posed corpses. It turns out Svedberg was actually murdered, and as Wallander and his colleagues delve further into Svedberg’s life they discover some surprising things about a man who was supposed to be their friend.

Svedberg certainly was Wallander’s friend, and he also turns out to have been gay and harbouring a crush on his portly colleague (I don’t know it is about Lassgard’s Wallander that has women and men throwing themselves at him, he’s not at all attractive). Hidden desires and jealousy are at the centre of an atmospheric, beautifully filmed episode. The ending features some real jeopardy as Kurt and Anne-Brit are kidnapped by the crazed killer of Svedberg – and when Wallander shoots him finally and then administers mouth-to-mouth so that he doesn’t die and take the easy way out, it opens up the lead character to interesting questions and motives.

In The Pyramid, Wallander is haunted by a case from his past in which he failed to pull the trigger and shoot a killer, leading to the death of one of his friends. Rather than being a hackneyed way of joining Kurt’s first case with what turns out to be his last, the conceit works well and allows Lassgard some meaty scenes of internal struggle as he tries to shoot the long-ago escaped killer at point blank range but ultimate decides he’s not that person.

This is a less stylishly filmed story, but it is no less cinematic, with explosions going off with gay abandon, and a particularly nasty villain with a heart of stone. Seeing Wallander resign in the final moments of the episode is sad, as I’ve really come to like Lassgard’s portrayal – he’s more bombastic, less introspective than Krister Henriksson, but he’s a bigger hit with the ladies (I love how shy he gets with ones he fancies, it’s endearing), and he’s still pretty dour – and the movies have been top notch, with an excellent supporting cast. That said, the ending feels believable – Kurt is visibly relieved to be free of police work that has subsumed his life, and it is good to see him off happy.

Brandvägg / Firewall (2006)

The second Wallander we watched starring Rolf Lassgård, after The Man Who Smiled, Firewall, a TV mini-series (shown in two parts here), was easily one of the best Wallanders, if not one of the best detective dramas, I've seen yet. The mystery involved an assassin in Africa; a murdered taxi driver; a seemingly unrelated death through dengue fever; and a mysterious diabetes nurse. 

In this story, Wallander really began to fall apart, being betrayed by his police colleague and new lady friend, and being slowed down and impaired through development of diabetes. Talk about a flawed hero, it's a wonder he still has a job at the end of this, especially when his not-paying-by-the-rules attitude leads to the loss and then death of a suspect. His biggest mistake turns out to be trusting someone who I only began to suspect myself late in the game. There's also the bit where he recruits an ex-con hacker to help out on the case, rather than call in the CID big boys from Stockholm - a hacker who bears more than a passing resemblance to one Lisbeth Salander from the Millennium series. 

The plot isn't just about a murder is Ystaad, this computer terrorism ruse has potentially global consequences - and it's refreshing to see something that might affect the world happening in Sweden rather than the USA or UK. There were so many layers and pieces to the puzzle that was Firewall's plot that it get me gripped throughout, and Lassgård proved to be a fascinating Wallander. A superior slice of TV detective drama.

Mannen som log / The Man Who Smiled (2003)

Over Christmas BBC4 showed some new Wallander movies, although not series 2 of the show starring Krister Henriksson, rather a series of TV movies with Rolf Lassgård in the title role. The first one shown, and the first we watched (the only one so far!) was The Man Who Smiled which, unlike the Henriksson series, is adapted from one of Henning Mankell's original novels.

It's a bit weird seeing someone new inhabiting the role of Wallander, and all of his police colleagues, and seeing the character of Linda taking a minor, non-police role. Once I'd got past the fact that this Wallander is heavier, grumpier, angrier and more prone to boughts of fast and sweaty sex with hookers (he didn't know she was one, honest!) I enjoyed this mystery involving the region's most famous man, some scary African statues and a sharp-shooting assassin. Writing this 2 or 3 weeks later, I've only a hazy memory of it all, except to say that I remember the movie being very atmospheric and, well, 'Swedish'!

This Wallander was more verbose, less likable, but no less watchable. I look forward to watching the others currently sat on the recorder.

Wallander: Series 1 (2005-06)

The Swedish series of Wallander is one of the best shows I've seen. Utterly gripping, beautifully shot (especially the stories that also received Swedish cinema releases), and terrifically played by a very talented cast, every 90 minute episode was a gem. Obviously some stories were weaker than others, but a weak Wallander was still  better than most bog standard detective dramas.

The series wasn't based on Henning Mankell's source novels, rather on new ideas from him, although not having read any I wouldn't notice! Krister Henriksson plays the oft dour, occasionally fun Kurt Wallander, but the show is not just named for him as the character's daughter, Linda is also part of the Ystad police force. Sadly, Johanna Sällström who played Linda committed suicide following the first series, and knowing this while watching the latter half of the season gives extra poiniancy to her performance, for the poor policewoman is put through the wringer. 

Among the other staff, some of whom leave half way through the season, shrink the police presence somewhat, are the very funny Nyberg (Mats Bergman), uniformed  Svartman (Fredrik Gunnarsson) and loose cannon Stefan Lindman, played by husband-of-Girl-With-The-Dragon-Tattoo's-Noomi-Rapace, Ola Rapace. He is a tough character to like sometimes, and his relationship with Linda goes sour, creating tension between them as the season progresses, and Stefan ultimately steps further over the line with suspects until the final episode when events reach an incredibly powerful and shocking conclusion, not to mention brave for TV show. 

Being filmed in Swedish, the mini-movies offer interesting insights into Swedish life (though obviously allowing for distortion of seeing this life through a TV drama) - although you'd take from Wallander that everyone lives in a detached house in the middle of nowhere as that's usually where the victims or murders live! Wallander presents interesting, genuinely intriguing mysteries, and is unafraid of a grisly murder scene, sometimes feeling a bit too graphic. However, that's the only criticism I'd level at the series, bar the strange fact that you never really get to know Kurt Wallander all that well - we're shown glimpses of his home life and certain things remain unexplained, but this is in keeping with the character, who is wedded to his work. I'm eagerly looking forward to BBC4 repeating the second and final Swedish series, and I'm interested to know how it will work without Stefan and without Linda - the first departure planned for, the second sadly not.  

Låt den rätte komma in / Let the Right One In (2008)

Having read about Let Me In, the new US remake of Let the Right One In, in this month's Empire, and since we're having a Swedish love-in with Wallander at the moment, the time seemed right to pick up the acclaimed horror movie, on Blu-Ray no less. So this marked the first Blu-Ray I've actually watched since getting a Blu-Ray player several months ago - up until now I've been using it to watch DVDs, although I've acquired about 10 Blu-Ray discs since then. I must say, you can see the difference - it's hard to explain, but the picture on Blu-Ray is just so much sharper.

But to the film... Let the Right One In is a slow burn, creepily effective take on the vampire myth, wih a tween spin. Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is bullied at school and ignored at home, so he's interested when Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door. Eli isn't just a little girl, however, she's a vampire, with a minder who looks after her by murdering people and draining their blood for her to drink. Things go a bit awry when he's caught and pours acid on his face, before taking a tumble out of a window.

As with Wallander, the pace is slow, allowing the gorgeous snowy, Swedish landscape to draw you in. Eli's real identity is teased and revealed slowly, and there are great moments of sudden, bloody violence, as she leaps, catlike on to victims - these are vampires like those of True Blood, not Twilight - when they bite, it f*cking hurts! Here the vampirisim is seen as a sort of disease, as Eli passes it on to a victim she doesn't have chance to kill - when the victim chooses death over life as a vampire, she deliberately combusts in a ball of fire, in a very spectacular scene. Another memorable scene sees cats leaping on and attacking the newly created vampire, it's weird but chillingly effective. A scene I'd rather forget sees Oskar look in on Eli changing, revealing her *ahem* nether regions to the viewer - I've no idea why.

Let the Right One In is a true horror classic, much better than any gore-filled teen-slasher pic beloved of Hollywood (and unfortunately the public in general), as it really gets under your skin. When Eli walks into Oskar's flat unbidden, and begins to bleed from her scalp it makes you wonder at those movies that present vampires as an aspirational lifestyle! The finale in the swimming pool is suitably gory but the camera is restrained. I'm interested to see the US remake, mostly on the basis that the Empire article assures me it's not an absolute travesty.

The Girl Who Played With Fire / Flickan som lekte med elden (2009)

After the rather exciting and excellent The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in March it’s been just a few short months to wait for the next in the Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire the sequel to the Swedish original. The reviews I’ve read of this instalment have been a bit sniffy, but I can’t see why, it’s just as gripping and thrilling as the first movie.

This movie is more thriller lead than mystery as the first one was, and it involves Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth Salander more than Michael Nyqvist’s Mikael Blomkvist, and the two of them only communicate via email, only meeting up in the last 5 minutes. Salander is a very compelling character, and a strong female lead, with strong views on men who are violent to women. Here she’s framed for the murder of the man who raped her in the previous film, and spends the movie trying to find out who the real killer is, leading her to some very dark places.

The extended cast of characters in this world is expanded on, with Salander’s female lover, and a boxer friend who are both beaten for their connection to our hero. There’s a blond bad guy who can’t feel pain, who comes across as a standard Bond henchman, and some very gory, bloody bits at the end when Lisbeth faces her ‘enemy’, who turns out to be someone surprising.

Rapace and Nyqvist make a fantastic duo, even though they spend all their time apart. Both are magnetic, and the movie really draws you in. I think this is helped in part by the subtitles which really make me concentrate and stop me watching passively. The Swedish settings are as lovely as ever, but I’ve seen prettier in the Swedish Wallander that I’m also watching at the moment. I’m really looking forward to the third instalment. I’m ambivalent about the US remake though.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Män som hatar kvinnor (2009)

I had only seen 1 Swedish film before, the quiet excellent Evil, and I didn't know the book at all, but armed with a five star Empire review I was prepared to give The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a shot - and I'm so glad I did! It's hands down the best 2.5hr Swedish thriller I've ever seen! And also one of the best movies I've seen, and it just goes to show, after Japanese Ponyo and French Micmacs, that foreign language films can be absolute gems. 

Dragon Tattoo is a (cliché alert!) real edge-of-the-seat thriller. It's occasionally brutal, sometimes funny, a little disturbing, and very, very exciting. It's nominally a murder mystery, and it's so much more. The central characters are a discredited journalist and a paroleé computer hacker with an abusive handler, and the way the come together to get involved in a 40 year old disappearance has so many layers and intriguing characters, so many twists and revelations the extended running time flew by. 

Noomi Rapace's titular Girl is such an interesting, conflicted character. We don't learn much about her background here, apparently all will be revealed in the sequels, and that intrigue adds to her mystique. Her interaction with Michael Nyqvist's investigative journalist is believable and very different from a traditional Hollywood relationship. 

I didn't guess any of the twists, but looking back, there were clues (as well as aspects of the plot that don't hold up to scrutiny), so the way the film is constructed and plotted is so tight you'd think there would be no time for character development and the like, but that's just not the case. If there's an American remake I'll give it a wide berth, but I'll certainly be booking tickets for the Swedish sequels that are due out by the end of the year.