Part of Teenage Wasteland
Teens Annika and Pär spend their days roaming between pinball parlors, riding bikes, smoking cigarettes and seeing bands. As things go when first love begins to bloom, the two weave in and out of each others’ lives until it finally clicks. When it does, nothing aside from their searing romance concerns them. It’s a story as old as time, but it’s never been told with such respect for the earnestness and fervor of first love.
Using the backdrop of the chronically dysfunctional, emotionally uninspiring adults in their lives, we’re given a simple, honest and humane portrait of the innocence of young love and its power to elevate us out of our circumstances. Featuring a stirring soundtrack, beautiful photography, a comic sense of the absurdity of grown-ups — and free from the condescension and convolution that often cloud similar tales — this seemingly effortless and rarely-screened debut from master filmmaker Roy Andersson stands as one of the preeminent depictions of that awkward but transformative moment between childhood and adulthood.
“An atypically naturalistic piece, balancing the austerity of [Andersson’s] later films with a touching and beautifully realised romanticism that captures the first stirrings of young love with an honesty that no other film has impinged upon.” —Robert Savage, Cinevue “Like so much of Andersson’s work, episodes of deep despair are laced with humor. The ending of the film lifts into the heart stopping, before it finally crashes into irony…and one can’t help but laugh. That is Andersson’s brilliance…. Even though A SWEDISH LOVE STORY is a different kind of film from those he will make throughout the rest of his career, the tragicomic soul of this artist is already strikingly obvious.” —Paul Davis, The Arts Fuse
