1939

This is a slow burner for sure. But it rewards a bit of patience so stick with it. The performances and casting are excellent and the characters are all three dimensional. In the course of three hours you get to know them and understand the changing world through their eyes. All of which makes one scene particularly shocking. It's always a good sign when a film stays with you after the credits roll and this one has. Maybe the slow pace matches the mood of lockdown but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The title is a misnomer ,for the story spans the whole WW2 till the allies' victory.

"1939" is essentially a chronicle ,in a country that maintained their policy of neutrality ,but breached it in favor of the German , later the allies ;these troubled time are seen through the eyes of a young blond girl (Helene Egehund ) and the best thing in this sometimes sprawling slow-moving work is the depiction of a female friendship ,a subject much less broached than the male one) ; the marvelous Helena Bergström almost steals the show from the principal ,and although their relationship is pure and platonic, it sets a pattern for today's women who live with a child (when Peter is stricken by croup ,both girls show that the baby has two moms: when Berit speaks to the thespian , in the background , the director does not use the usual code).

Churchill once said that the country "played both sides for profit ";it is certainly true for Bengt's family whose business with the Germans was thriving but who was searching new markets when the Nazi 's star faded ;the sames goes for the owner of the chic restaurant where "Arbeit macht frei ". But it also happened in occupied countries where there were collaborators too.

Too bad the other side ,represented by the heroine's cousin ,a socialist who 's sent to a labor camp ,is underwritten .

Bengt , Annika 's husband certainly embraced the Nazi's obnoxious ideology ,when he lets his friends check if his wife is really an Aryan .Annika will always be an intruder in her family-in-law (the scene of the restaurant where she works and where her future father-in-law snubs her is revealing); when she leaves him and Berit does not let the brute in , they take a rebel stand at a time feminism did not exist ;as I wrote , the Berit/Annika relationship is the raison d'être of the film .

Sweden was one of the safest countries during ww2 in Europe after Iceland and Portugal. A movie centered around the life of a woman during said war in Sweden needs a more interesting plot to compensate for the dullness of the events that concerned Sweden in that time.

That plot never happened. It's simply a story about a young woman and some sad realities of life that could have happened regardless of whether or not a war was ongoing

As a sort of documentary this would have been a 9, but they tried to make it a movie. 3h long as well. Not worth your time if you don't at least enjoy modern history.

I really enjoyed this. Interesting to see the story of the Scandinavian countries during World War II. The film was digitally restored in 2019 which makes it feel more recent than filmed in 1989. Give it a try!

This film is probably one of the most well-made films Sweden has ever produced. It's serious, it's truthful and believable and it really depicts life in Sweden during the WW2. I'm from Värmland myself, so that part of the film seems most important to me. Many swedes lived with the Third Reich as neighbors during the occupation, and it's a clever touch to include the shooting of some people trying to make it to Sweden.

I also have to point out that my single appearance in any film so far, is at the train station when the father leaves to do military service. See the hats of the little boys running around in the crowd? One of them is me :)

Anyway, well made, and it really shows that this was the most expensive Swedish film to date. Somewhat slow, though.