Sam on Beautiful Swedish Film “Everlasting Moments” by Jan Troell

 

by Sam Juliano

Back in 1972 when director Jan Troell completed his sweeping two-part saga about Swedish emigration to America, The Emigrants/The New Land, based on the novels of Vilhelm Moberg, film icon and fellow countryman Ingmar Bergman said that he was the “best thing that’s happened to Swedish cinema in decades.”  In truth, based on the naturalistic and painterly beauty of his New World tapestries and the verisimilitude of his vision in his pair of quietly-moving epic films of a family trying to overcome oppressive hardships, Troell immediately took his place among world-class directors of the highest distinction.  Two later films, The Flight of the Eagle (1982) and Il Capitano: A Swedish Requiem (1987) were reasonably impressive achievements, with the former work receiving a Best Foreign Film nomination from the academy.  Troell, who began his career as elementary school teacher, later worked as a director of photography for Bo Wiederberg, another fellow Swede, whose Elvira Madigan is often mentioned by film scholars as the most ravishingly photographed film in history.  But with the two-part chronicle acknowledged here at the outset, Troell, a foreign director, has given us the only fully satisfactory film statement of one of the great historical phenomena, the mass movement of peoples  to this country in the nineteenth century.     

Troell’s new film, Everlasting Moments is set at the turn of the century, approximately two decades after this voluntary defection depicted in the earlier films.  Inspired by a true-life story, Troell again uses natural light to compose beautiful images that tell a story that showcases flawed humanity.  The film centers around a working-class family, with a troubled patriarch, Sigfrid Larsson, who is both a drunk and a womanizer.  But he also loves his large family, which eventually includes seven children, and that bi-polar behavior is excellently conveyed in a larger-than-life performance by Mikael Persbrandt.  The indomitable and almost withdrawn mother, Maria, is the victim of one slight after the other, but she stays the course, and a seemingly minor development intercedes and alters her path.  She finds a camera that she once won in a lottery but never used.  Her initial intention was to sell it, but the proprietor of the shop, Sebastian Pedersen (played by Jesper Christensen) persuades Maria to learn how to use it, as he informs her of its practical and aesthetic advantages.  Over a period of time, the novice camera owner develops an eye for the shoot -which is primitive to be sure-and is particularly adroit at capturing haunting portraits.  She sees through her camera both the misery and beauty that defines her existence.  Her new hobby is heartened by Pederson, who despite having a wife in Denmark, falls in love with Maria.  But the relationship remains celibate.  Meanwhile Maria begins to earn income by negotiating group shots and portraits, while at the same time her adulterous husband is having an affair with a barmaid, and there is a strike among the dock workers.  Sigfrid is then falsely accused of complicity in an explosion on a ship containing a group of English scab workers resisting the strike, and is called for military service at the outbreak of World War I in 1914.     

During his brief time away, Maria continues to make money taking pictures and scores big at Christmas.  She sees her picture in a local newspaper, and even photographs the three kings from Scandinavia, who are having a policy meeting.  Simultaneously, Sebastian is shooting newsreel footage.  As soon as Sigfrid returns, domestic unrest resumes, and this even includes a marital rape and an unwanted child, but through it all the marriage survives.  One child announces on a voiceover that “maybe it was really love,” but it’s hard to imagine a woman accepting such behavior and returning any kind of real affection, as the violence reached one point where the woman was dragged down and held at knife-point.  Despite all the adversity, Maria burgeons as an artist, partly as a result of her gradual comprehension of her photographic gifts, and also as a result of her cognizance of all the beauty around her that serves as a stark contrast to inner duress.  In any case, the psychology of the relationship with her husband is more out of Bergman or Strindberg, rather than just a simple case of marital incompatibility.     

Of course, as all cinema lovers would recall while watching this drama play out, the real mutually unrequited love affair in the film between Sebastian and Maria recalls Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in David Lean’s Brief Encounter, who were soul mates, but couldn’t consummate their love in partial measure because of unwillingness to break with familial relationships.  The film’s most wrenching moment occurs at the end when Sebastian disappears down a tree-shrouded road, as he leaves forever back to Denmark.  Unbeknownst to him, Maria watches from a distance, fully understanding she will never again see him.      

Troell uses newsreel footage to great effect in his delicate presentment of the film’s time and place, which chronicles Swedish emigration, the progression of the war, and capitalism’s ongoing war with socialism.  Troell literally skims the surface with these, and their employment within the fabric of the film is never obtrusive.     

The film’s screenplay was written by Troell, his wife Agneter Ulfsater-Troell, and Niklas Radstrom.  Purportedly, Agneter interviewed the daughter of the great-aunt, who is the subject of the film, and spent several years gathering information and remembrances which served as a central focus that the filmmakers embellished and developed into the finished product, which seems to have even more reverberation as a real-life story, however the transcription.     

It’s worth noting that Troell shared the cinematography duties with Misha Gavrjusjov and the result is highly classical, with lush muted period colors which envision a different era of filmmaking.  The look of the film is lush and natural, and the production design and costumes are first-rate.  Matti Bye’s music is serviceable, but Troell is one director who has always downplayed it’s prominence, always allowing visuals and language to develop valid emotion.     

Troell’s greatest gift is his ability to wring emotions out of his stately compositions without even a hint of sentimentality.  This was evident in his aforementioned two-part saga, where hardship and impoverishment strengthened one’s emotional capacity.  Troell always lets events, evenfamily rituals, play out without embellishment.  The result, unsurprisingly is a film with added emotional resonance.  Everlasting Moments is one of the few films where it’s title matches it theme.  

Final Rating: **** 1/2        (of five)     

Note:  I saw ‘Everlasting Moments on Friday evening March 6th at 11:00 P.M. at the Landmark Cinemas in Manhattan, all by my lonesome.  I was fortunate in getting a parking space right around the corner from the theatre on what was a hectic week end evening down town.