Solstorm

We’ve been getting used to seeing Krister (Wallander) Henriksson and Jakob (Johan Falk) Eklund and Mikael (Beck and every other film) Persbrandt in almost everything recently.

We’re not used to seeing Persbrandt as a religious fanatic. Nor Krister Henriksson, who always looks quite sweet. They were teamed up with James Bond-lady Izabella Scorupco and her far-too-serious solicitor boss Jakob Eklund, and then transported to Kiruna.

While watching Solstorm, the film based on Åsa Larsson’s crime novel, Daughter decided she might not move to Kiruna after all. The town looked nice enough, albeit small and too far from anywhere, but when you take the religious shenanigans and the murders into account, then it doesn’t matter that it’s also close to the European Space Agency.

Izabella Scorupco returns ‘home’ to help her best friend whose brother, and her own former boyfriend, has been murdered. It gets pretty nasty, as it all centres on the small but powerful church where the victim was a minister. And which just about everyone else has ties to, in some way or other.

As Daughter kept pointing out; why didn’t they just ask the children? They knew.

Interestingly different, and very pregnant, police detective. And scary Persbrandt. For a change.

The morning after the film we just happened across a copy of the book in the charity shop in town. Didn’t buy it.

Everlasting Moments

Or Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick, as they say in Sweden. Daughter ‘found’ this film when wasting time on the internet as usual, and we’ve been waiting for a couple of months for it to turn up in Britain. It’s on at Cornerhouse right now, so three members of the witch household traipsed through a dug-up Manchester on this unexpectedly sunny Saturday afternoon.

This story about a female photographer in Sweden a hundred years ago makes a good film. I think it’s based on somebody real, and it certainly had real events incorporated into the plot, like the bomb on the boat. Maria has a drunken and violent husband, who has no understanding for her fascination with her camera, and certainly doesn’t appreciate how good she is with it. That understanding comes from the Danish owner of the photographer’s shop.

Maria herself is Finnish, and the film was made with funding from all the Nordic countries, which is probably why there are actors from all participating areas, including some dialogue in Finnish. The story takes place in Malmö and its surroundings, and most of the Swedish characters speak ‘Skånska’, which is the Malmö accent.

The drunken husband is played by Mikael Persbrandt, who is in practically every Swedish film these days. The minor roles are filled by major actors, and the charming photographer – with an adorably morose looking dog – has more recently been seen in James Bond. Not that I noticed Jesper Christensen there, or in Flame and Citron, but I assume he counts as Denmark’s star contribution.

It’s a Jan Troell film, and it shows. I do wish it could have got rid of the sepia effect, though. It just looked so dull at all times. The sun shone in those days too, even though photos are black and white, or sepia. And today’s translator note is that the horse was not ‘full of mischief’, but ‘reliable’.