This one was a hard one to decide. There are a few that I’ve already listed for other prompts and I was going to choose Yiorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster (2015) until I realised it’s in English (duh!). It came down to exquisite Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In or astounding Estonian B&W In the Crosswind (Risttuules) (2014).
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This is undoubtably an unusual movie. Like a genre mash up of a Scandi crime drama and a dark and dirty fairytale, Border keeps you decidedly uncomfortable from start to end. Continue reading
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The Sámi, or Lapp, people of northern Scandinavia have long been subjected to discrimination in Sweden, Norway and Finland. In Sami Blood we see the story of one 14 year old girl, Elle-Marya (Lene Cecilia Sparrok), whose South Sámi family herd reindeer in rural Sweden. Continue reading
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An artful satire about collective responsibility and contemporary art, The Square is clever and sometimes challenging but overlong in delivering its message. Continue reading
I wanted to really love this Swedish film. It had great bones, interesting characters, interesting topic, an unflinching gaze and a strong central performance from the 12-ish year old lead. It is the story of her character, Stella, as she watches her sister Katja, the skinny sister of the title, struggle with the rigours of competitive figure skating and, slowly we discover, an eating disorder. Continue reading
