The Last Sentence

Borrowed from a library, this movie was first watched by a friend. Because I had picked the movie because of its theme, I was, hence, tentative. The friend found the movie long and made too complicated with its English subtitles and 'ghosts'. However, this is a friend who cannot sit and watch a movie... has to get up and 'do other things' in 'the boring sections'. Does not work with subtitles.

So, I began to watch it with some apprehension. Which swiftly disappeared. Perhaps because I am an activist/dissident in Canada (and I use such movies to ask myself and others, what makes us so naive about our failed democracies when we have stories like this in our history?), it was the subtitles of the dialogue that struck so true. And, being male, (my friend is female) I could relate with the man's inner turmoil. Making the ghosts of three important women in the main character's life becomes an effective tool for exposing this man's conscience. It is also good to follow up the movie with the extras provided with the DVD.

This is a movie I would buy for my collection of 'movies for reflection' on human behaviour that becomes sad ignorance of situations like this... where governments push down the truth. Sweden might use the excuse that they had to do what they had to do to suppress this man and his defence of freedom of speech. This movie simply emphasizes that we have no excuse.

Personal courage becomes a scarce commodity when the times get tough. And there weren't times much tougher than 1930's and the rise of Nazism. Europe stood paralyzed in an unlikely marriage of fear and denial. Veteran director Jan Troell tells a story of a public figure that bravely attacked Nazis in his newspaper column. Torgny Segerstedt was revered and much suspected. His principals made the others look corrupt and petty. And they were, but that is beside the point, because nobody has more concern about appearances than the immoral and tainted. The interesting quirk of this brilliant movie is that Torgny himself was a deeply flawed human being, in turns neglectful and cruel to his wife and kids. Somehow this man with such strong sense of morals, cared about the humanity in general, but alas, not for individuals. Well, that might be understandable. The messiness of humanity would try the patience off all saints combined. Our times prove that beyond any doubt.

''The Last Sentence'' (original title in Swedish- ''Dom över död man'') is the story of Torgny Segerstedt, a Swedish journalist whose fierce anti-nazi articles became a matter of great concern within the country's political life and stirred major backlash both in Germany and Sweden. The movie begins with Adolph Hitler's rise to absolute power in Germany in mid-1930s and follows the growing aggressiveness and hate-speech of the Third Reich until the ending of the Second World War, examining the influence and effect that the threat of a possible German invasion had on the decision-making of Sweden's government. The film focuses on the much-debated neutrality of Sweden and Segerstedt's bold critique on the inactivity of Swedish politicians even when Nazis invaded the neighboring Scandinavian countries. The basic flaw of ''The Last Sentence'' is that it follows an uneven rhythm and as a result, the movie can be divided into two parts, the first being tedious, almost annoying, while the second picks up speed and leads to an emotionally touching climax. The director, Jan Troell, is one of Sweden's greatest auteurs and each one of his films is characterized by its high-quality standards as well as magnificent performances. In this one, I think that Jesper Christensen's performance deserves to be in the spotlight but the whole of the cast does a tremendous job as well. My rating would be closer to 3,5/5.

Jan Troell is the nestor of Swedish films. He's been directing for 50 years and bringing on Torgny Segerstedt is of course an interesting choice of subject. Segerstedt was one of few journalists who completely stood up against Hitler during WW2. A story of courage in a special way, since Sweden never took part in the war.

So this could have been a discussion about common political morals, but instead it's a discussion about Segerstedt's private life and most of all his mistresses. Of course you can make a movie that way, if it has a substance referring to the man's work, but this isn't the case here. It's more about anybody's love life.

And there isn't any magic about it. The work should be bigger than the man than it comes to somebody like Segerstedt.

The key to this film lies, in part, in understanding the meaning of the title. "The Last Sentence" is an ambiguous translation of the Swedish because a "last sentence" might refer to the last words a man writes. Instead, "sentence" here means the "judgment" one passes on a man who has died--a judgment that endures longer than the judgments that were passed on a man while he was alive.

And this citation of the "Hávamál" (an Old Norse 13th-century poem) has a special resonance in light of a toast proposed by Torgny Segerstedt early in the film: Segerstedt remarks something to the effect that we have a sacred duty to tell the truth in public matters, but no such duty in our private affairs.

Jan Troell has thus given us a portrait of Torgny Segerstedt as a man who fiercely refused to say anything other than the truth about Hitler and Nazism, but who, at the same time, was incapable of acting in a truthful and caring fashion in his private life--a man who seemingly had a deeper attachment to his dogs than to any of the people who deeply loved him.

And Troell has perhaps highlighted the shortcomings in Segerstedt's personal relationships precisely because he wants the viewer to sense this tension in the final judgment we place on the life of a man. Do Segerstedt's attempts to stir the conscience of the Swedes through his writings on the horrors of Nazism cancel out whatever negative judgment we might pass on his conduct as a father, husband or lover?

Maybe Troell poses just such a question because he himself may sense that he's nearing the end of his own life. And so what Troell wants, perhaps, is for us to realize that we are all faced with the question of the measure of a person's life and the final judgment to be passed on that life: what weight to give to the life one has lived in public, visible to all, or to the life that one has lived in the shadows (filled with love and affection or not) of one's private life?