Adults in a larval stage

leoperu

Sensitive rendering of a teenage romance with absurdist touches, nice camera-work and nice score featuring nice period songs. One thing that bothered me throughout was the forced contrast between the youngsters' idyll and the ostentatiously existential world of adults. I don't know anything about life in Sweden in the sixties, but such degree of mediocrity, frustration and (male) aggressiveness seemed to me beyond belief - rather a funhouse of abstractions of modern angst than a sample of real people.

But maybe the teenagers were not meant by Andersson to be as innocent as they seem. Driven by the same needs and desires as the adults, i.e. to play with others, to touch them/lean on them, to defend one's position in the pecking order ... - might they be models of the same egocentrism, albeit in a larval stage ?

Very good transfer from Artificial Eye.

score 6/10

leoperu 11 January 2013

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2735093/