The Seventh Seal
Sweden’s official website for tourism estimates that during the month January, the sun rises in dear old Stockholm at 8:47 a.m. – only to set six hours later at 2:55 p.m. Kiruna, the northernmost town in the county, languishes the month through without the sun ever deigning to even drop in. But it more than makes up for it during June and July when the sky is bright twenty-four hours a day.
What sort of effect would such an astronomical perversity have on a country’s relationship to film?
Surely the ability to temporarily exercise control over the illumination of one’s world must be therapeutic – to embrace night during the day in the darkness of a theatre or to shut out the light when Mother Nature forgets to flip the switch.
It’s also tempting to draw a connection between the brooding existential bent of Swedish cinema (a stereotype, to be sure) and the necessity of accepting the fate dealt by an absurd and indifferent universe.
Maybe the stark contrast of light and dark in the Swedish sky and the Swedish psyche also has something to do with director Ingmar Bergman’s signature use of black and white film to shoot many of his classic cinematic works.
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Appropriate, then, that Bergman’s most famous flick – 1957’s The Seventh Seal – forms the centerpiece of the Milwaukee Film Festival’s Passport: Sweden program. (It goes without saying that the film will be shown via 35mm print in the Oriental’s non-pareil main theatre.)
The other seven films rounding out the Passport: Sweden program are contemporary works by female filmmakers. Ranging from romantic comedy to documentary, the Passport: Sweden program affords Milwaukeeans the opportunity to get hip to the vanguard of contemporary Swedish film.
Here’s what the Passport: Sweden program has in store:
Eat Sleep Die (Äta sova dö)
(Sweden / 2012 / Director: Gabriela Pichler) Trailer
When nononsense, 20something, Balkan immigrant Raša finds herself relieved of her position as a factory worker, she's thrust into the miasma of Sweden's unemployment program for immigrants, a job hunt mired in bureaucracy where numerous candidates fight over limited opportunities, all the while resolute in her attempts to find gainful employment in order to care for her ailing father. Winner of the audience award at the Venice Film Festival, Eat Sleep Die is a stunning debut from director Gabriela Pichler, a naturalistic rallying cry for lowwage workers anchored by a magnetic performance from newcomer Nermina Lukač.
Ego
(Sweden / 2013 / Director: Lisa James Larsson) Trailer
Superficial young Sebastian is an aspiring musician who spends his nights partying and engaging in unfulfilling onenight stands. As he is on the verge of achieving his dreams of a recording contract, a freak accident leaves him blinded and lashing out at the world. With Sebastian unable to cope with this new reality, his parents hire young caretaker Mia to save him from himself — and with her help, he begins to see the world in a new light. But when an opportunity to regain his sight through surgery is proposed, Sebastian must learn to see past appearances and look within in this winning Swedish romantic comedy.
Hallåhallå
(Sweden / 2014 / Director: Maria Blom) Trailer
A middleaged recent divorcée finds the impetus to break free from her old habits in this warmhearted Swedish comedy, winner of multiple film festival audience awards. Left by her husband for a younger woman and disrespected in her position as a hospital worker, Disa needs assistance to remove herself from a midlife rut. Luckily for her, the universe provides: be it a martial arts selfdefense course to properly channel her anger, a divorced father of seven who awakens romantic possibilities, or a troublesome elderly patient who just might be the key to starting a new life altogether!
Hotell
(Sweden, Denmark / 2013 / Director: Lisa Langseth) Trailer
When traditional means aren't doing the trick for a therapy group in search of emotional breakthroughs, they check into a hotel using alternate personas in an attempt to step outside themselves for a short time in this endearing oddity. Be it Type A interior designer Erika (the amazing Alicia Vikander), unable to cope with a rough pregnancy, terminally shy AnnSofie, or the Oedipally inclined Rikard, they all take this opportunity to wrestle with their demons (even engaging in Mayan torture rituals!). Beautifully performed by its ensemble cast with a tone perfectly calibrated between humor and drama, the film makes sure you won't regret your stay in Hotell.
My Skinny Sister (Min lilla syster)
(Sweden, Germany / 2015 / Director: Susanna Lenken) Trailer
Sisters Katja and Stella couldn't be more different, with Katja (Swedish pop star Amy Deasismont) a slender, confident figureskating obsessive and Stella (newcomer Rebecka Josephson, a magnetic young talent you won't soon forget) selfconscious of her body and treated as something of an ugly duckling in her dysfunctional family. But when Stella discovers Katja's slim frame is the result of her battle with anorexia, their sisterly dynamic is upended. Winner of multiple festival awards, My Skinny Sister captures its comingofage drama with compassion and insight (no surprise, given director Susanna Lenken based this story on her own childhood).
A Separation (Att skiljas)
(Sweden / 2013 / Director: Karin Ekberg) Trailer
In this tragicomic documentary that captures the very moments at which a family dissolves, filmmaker Karin Ekberg films her parents as they go about the messy business of finalizing their divorce — packing up and dividing their property, a process that dredges up old memories and new emotions in both mother and father. Unsentimental, unsparing, and rigorously honest, A Separation shows the very different ways Mr. and Mrs. Ekberg are looking to move on after 38 years of marriage — her mother seeing an exciting opportunity for change and growth while her father clings desperately to a happiness that has long since passed.
The Seventh Seal
(Sweden / 1957 / Director: Ingmar Bergman) Trailer
Behold on the big screen in 35mm the most iconic work in Ingmar Bergman's career, with its breathtaking blackandwhite imagery that changed movies forever and proved the pure power that cinema as a medium could possess. Max von Sydow's knight returns home from the Crusades wrestling with a crisis of faith, only to find Death itself in his plagueravaged homeland, waiting to play the most highstakes game of chess one can imagine. This "radical work of art reaches back to scripture, to Cervantes, and to Shakespeare to create a new dramatic idiom of its own" ( The Guardian ).
Stockholm Stories (Gondolen)
(Sweden / 2013 / Director: Karin Fahlén) Trailer
The Swedish answer to Love Actually, Stockholm Stories follows five interlocking stories (including a precocious yet untalented young writer, a friendless advertising genius, a tightlipped workaholic, a shy upperclass boy harboring a secret, and a recently dumped young woman) as they weave in and out of each other's lives over the course of a few rainy days in November, learning lessons about love along the way. A clever screenplay and delicately wry ensemble cast help bring this story to life, a story of journeying through the dark in order to live in the light.
The 7th Annual Milwaukee Film Festival, presented by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, takes place from September 24 through October 8. Passes and ticket 6-packs are currently available at discounted rates exclusively online at mkefilm.org/tickets. Tickets for individual screenings will be available through Milwaukee Film Festival Box Office starting September 9 for Milwaukee Film Members and September 10 for the General Public.
