Fyra nyanser av brunt

This is not about the condition of Sweden and the Swedes, it is more about the condition of everybody everywhere. Still this film is very Swedish and you have to live here to understand, to laugh at the right places and to feel sad, when you're supposed to.

But it's very well narrated and director Tomas Alfredsson knows exactly where to push the script, which he probably has had cut down in a perfect way. Still the film, with four different episodes rolling together, is more than three hours long. But it doesn't feel long. The acting is not really realistic (it ain't meant to be). But especially Maria Kulle and Ulf Brunnberg are making the performances of their lives.

There is hope for Swedish film, obviously. This is a new way of making comedy. If this is a comedy.

This is a very hard film to understand. It is four stories in one movie. The Killinggänget have made something very interesting for the viewers. The main characters are the famous, in Sweden that is, Robert Gustafsson, Johan Rehborg and Henrik Schyffert. They all come and go as different characters in the four different stories.

First story: A hotel owner and his wife get visited by his parents. The parents, or the mother, bring a mystic man. The mystic man also brings a present to the owner and the wife. It is a wooden doll. Does the wooden doll have something to do with the pain and suffering?

Second story: One couple, one son. The son has problems in school and fails in three subjects. The father tries to stimulate his son by taking him to his work. The father works at a crematorium for animals. He shows the son the full procedure. Accidentally the son turns on the fire in the oven and burns his father bad.

Third story: An old man, died 43 minutes ago, tells a story from the dead. He has three sons that want his money. Who will get what and what will they get?

Fourth story: The cooking club. Four people and one `psychiatrist' meets and talks about their miserable lives.

The movie is very long and hard to get at first. It takes a bit of time to understand how the four different stories relate to one another. The theme they are pushing on is fatherhood. All stories are somehow related to fathers. The story hands us an insight in the swedish culture and how it affects the different characters in their unique stories that the movie tells us about. How you "should" react in different situations and how people around you react when difficult problems hit you.

I for one enjoyed the movie and i often recognised the characters from my normal day life. It reflected the swedishness in a way that i never have seen before. This I think, is a movie for those who more or less understand the typical Swedish culture. If you like it you should also look into "Ben & Gunnar - En Liten Film Om Manlig Vänskap" which is another "Killinggänget" production.

Never, ever, have I been as impressed by a film as this little piece about four groups of people, that faces a crisis, or many. In some ways a little like Short Cuts, but totally different, at the same time.

There are a heap of lead characters, whom we all learn to know very well as their stories unfold, and they are, as persons show their good and their bad sides, their weaknesses and their strengths, with lots of drama and laughter.

The closest equivalent in a US movie, I can think of, which then is far weaker in every respect, is the Royal Tenenbaums.

Four Shades of Brown, as the title would be in English, tells the story about a stressed out hotelier and his wife, and his elderly parents (who are traveling magicians); about the receptionist at an animal crematory and his family misadventures; about the members of a cooking course (who mostly talk about their sorry lives) and fourthly about the funeral for a womanizing trotter jockey, who tries to continue orchestrating the family from beyond the grave, by singing and appearing in 3D during the funeral, thanks to high tech equipment that has cost his entire fortune (the family gets nil, not even the famous horse is given to the family)!

There is a warmth and compassion in this film, that is filled with grief and laughter, that I've never experienced before.

Most actors were new to me, except Robert Gustafsson and one or two more, but they all deserve the big slam the film took at the Swedish Guldbagge extravaganza (= the Swedish "Oscar" Awards) a week ago!

Male, female and male supporting actor prizes went to this film, plus a few more, to boot!

If you have the chance, go and see it - the hours float by very quickly!

The English title should be added to IMDb: how can that be done? I saw Four Shades of Brown (with English subtitles) in Copenhagen

A wonderful mix of brownish-black humour and, amid the playfulness, a good dose of wistful melancholy - this film captures a particular (and compelling) view of Swedish life today, better than any other film in recent years. The subtle ironies and rather self-conscious social commentary will probably be lost on those who have not lived in Sweden or had a fair bit of contact here.

It's hard to know how enjoyable these four stories would be to someone who knows little about Sweden and contemporary Swedish-ness. In might help, for example, to enjoy the comic artistry of Robert Gustafsson, without having in mind his many appearances on Swedish TV. But in some ways, this background is the main point. One of the film's triumphs is Gustafsson's love-hate light-dark creation of the everyday absurdities of `normal' family life here. If you don't recognise the humour in the use of regional accents, for example, you'll be missing a lot of the fun.

Nevertheless, Four Shades has plenty to offer anyone willing to think outside their own set of cultural references. At least a couple of the storylines are, in themselves, quite captivating.

Don't be put off the title. If you're looking for pretty images of Sweden, the opening shots alone will satisfy. Personally I was pleased that at least it finally rained at the beachside hotel, one morning.

Presumably SVT (Swedish public service TV) will show this gem within a year or two. Surely!? It's a big shame that it doesn't seem to be getting much of a run in the Swedish cinemas.

[This is my first review for IMDb - jono_nath AT hotmail DOT-U-know-what :-]