After recently watching both A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence and Songs from the Second Floor by Roy Andersson, I was interested in seeing some of his older work. A Swedish Love Story was recently re-released and the title interested me. Might this be a movie that’s similar to something like Before Sunrise? It’s a bout two teenagers, Annika and Pär who fall in love during a hot summer.
The movie is product of its time and it’s fascinating to see what Sweden looked like in 1969. The story about a young love is timeless though and although both protagonists are good in their role, the movie itself didn’t manage to hold my attention. The story unfolds extremely slow, the adults in the movies are often bizarre (where I wondered if this was on purpose or if Swedish culture is simply different). The end result was that I didn’t care much about what Annika and Pär were experiencing. I do think their is an audience for this movie, but I’m not in that audience. Felt like a movie that was a chore to sit through.
While I agree it is slow-paced, I thought it was powerful and well-acted. Rare to watch a film which is sweet one moment, and bleak the next moment when focusing on the parents.
Yeah, I can understand people enjoying this movie, but it wasn’t for me.