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Greetings again from the darkness. The best word I can come up to describe this fine film is humanistic. Everything about director Jan Troell's (The Emigrants) approach is based on the affect or reaction of the individual, very human, characters.

Maria Heiskanen as Maria Larsson is fascinating ... in the most grounded, heartfelt style I have seen. She reminds of Imelda Staunton in her ability to sell grace and dignity despite all obstacles. This is not a film about some character's ability to make headlines. Rather it is one woman's battle for independence for herself and stability and safety for her seven children.

We may question why Maria insists on remaining with her violent-when-drunk husband, but she takes her father's counsel to honor her vows very seriously. She battles through much for her family but the true joy in the story comes from her awakening with a Contessa camera, courtesy of Sebastian Pederson (played well by Jesper Christensen). She discovers a god given talent and eye for photography.

This is a long film, but so realistically presented that it just compels the viewer to join in. Sadly, it won't find much of an audience in the U.S., but it is excellent film-making and a very rewarding journey.

Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick (2008), directed by Jan Troell, is showing in the U.S. with the title "Everlasting Moments." It's an unusual movie, and I enjoyed it, but it's hard to describe or review.

The film takes place in Sweden, roughly between 1900 and 1920. It's more or less an "I Remember Mama"-type memoir, narrated by the oldest daughter of a married working-class couple--Maria Larsson, played by Maria Heiskanen, and Sigfrid Larsson, played by Mikael Persbrandt.

Maria Heiskanen is a very attractive actor, but this part calls for her to appear relatively plain, which she manages to accomplish. (Sort of like Betsy Blair appearing as "the dog" in "Marty.") Her husband is a basically decent sort of guy, who was considered a good catch when they married. Unfortunately, he's a mean drunk and, even when sober, he's not always the best of spouses.

What makes Maria different is that she has won a camera in a lottery, and her ability to take photographs moves the plot forward, insofar as it moves forward at all.

The film more or less meanders along, with episodes that appear realistic enough, but that don't always seem to be heading in a clear direction from beginning to middle to end. Time moves forward, and people--and the actors who portray them--get older, but the movie doesn't unfold in an "A therefore B, B therefore C" sort of way.

This is a movie to watch if you don't demand sex or action, if you don't mind a slow pace, and if you don't mind a movie that appears to be shot more in sepia than in true color. I enjoy that kind of film, so I liked "Everlasting Moments." If your tastes don't run along those lines, I'd pass it by.

Incidentally, we saw the film in a theater, but I think it would work well on a small screen.

I was reluctant to see Jan Troell's film for fear it might not be worthy of the experience of seeing his "The Emigrants"/"The New Land." Ordinarily, I'd rush to see something by any good director, but those two films were of such distinction, I hesitated.

Many of the same issues in "The Emigrants"/"The New Land" are here but we have it from the point of view of an artist and this film concentrates less on the art itself than the reason the artist needs to do it. It's a slight shift in focus than we usually get in biographies of artists, but it made this film something that's truer than, say, seeing Ed Harris ape Jackson Pollack dripping paint.

The rise of the middle class, WWI, labor unions, the demise of feudal monarchy, alcoholism, abortion, disability, codependency, feminism, and most importantly how industrial technology released the poor from dire existence to the opportunity (and leisure) of making art...and why that was important.

It's an ambitious film that feels as light as a shadow. While there is quite a bit of dialog, there's never any explanation despite extensive voice-over by a daughter of the subject of the film. We're shown why this woman needs to take photographs, and how she's introduced to it and the changes it brings lifts us up to the ecstasy she feels.

The circumstances of her marriage which is the primary focus of her suffering Troell renders with great sensitivity and understanding. The fact that the abusive husband, Mikael Persbrandt, almost steals the film is a testament to the compassion of the filmmaker.

But its the central character's actress, Maria Heiskanen, who takes a role that could have been maudlin and infuses it with a ferocious passion that stays in one's memory. No director could have wished for more in this performance.

Filmed in 16mm then transferred to 35mm, the passion of the main character for making images is clearly the director's own. One (of many) moments is so exquisite and complete: The lead character doesn't understand how photographs are made, and when she's shown with the image of a butterfly projected on her open hand, we're as astonished as she is.

That image is used again near the end of the film in a way that's masterful. I don't know if this movie is as good as "The Emigrants/New Land," but its worthy of the director who made that monumental work.

I recently saw this at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival and it would be among my favorites of this years festival. Everlasting moments was Sweden's official entry for the 81st Academy Awards and although not nominated it did make the short list of nine and it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Set in the port city of Malmo in Southern Sweden beginning in the year 1907 it tells the story of Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen) and her hard working dock worker husband Sigfrid (Mikael Persbrandt) who is abusive to Maria and battles the bottle and infidelity issues. Maria is a Finnish immigrant married to the Swedish Sigfrid and they have a rocky marriage but Sigfrid is a good provider when sober and they start a large family. Maria once won a camera in a lottery and is considering selling it when the Danish owner of a photography shop, Jesper (Sabastian Pederson) convinces her to use the camera and become an amateur photographer. It begins a long friendship between Jesper and Maria much to the chagrin of Sigfrid. The story is told in narrative by the Larsson's daughter Maja (Callin Ohrvall) as she remembers the hardships of life in early 20th century Sweden and the strengths of her mother that kept the family together. It's kind of reminiscent of the 40's film classic I Remember Mama. A wonderful story based on the remembrances of a real life Maja who lived from 1902 to 1991. From veteran director Jan Troell its a beautiful period piece with wonderful cinematography by Mischa Gaurjusjov and Troell himself. The attention to detail in reproducing the times is amazing from set designer Peter Bauman and costume designer Karen Gram. I would give this a 9.5 out of 10 and recommend it.

Based on the true story of working-class housewife and part-time photographer Maria Larsson, Jan Troell's film required financing from five different countries, and was almost five years in the making. When Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen) discovers a valuable camera in her home, she takes it to a pawn shop in order to raise some money when her husband Sigfrid (Mikael Persbrandt) loses his job. The shop owner Pedersen (Jesper Christensen) takes a special interest in the camera and shows Maria its sentimental value by demonstrating the way it manages to capture light in order to photograph an image. Having to care for her family while her abusive husband goes on strike at the shipyards, she finds solace in taking pictures as favours for the townspeople, and discovers she has a natural talent for capturing the true art of everyday life.

Filmed in grainy sepia, the cinematography manages to capture the feel of the 1900-era that we modern people see only through old photographs and silent films. It's an ingenious decision as the both looks beautiful, and helps transfer the viewer into a time that we can only experience through the work of people like Maria Larsson. Credit must go to Heiskanen who captures both the suffocating pressure of her characters situation, and her stiff-upper lipped determination and strength to maintain her love for photography that is opposed by her hard-drinking husband. Persbrandt is excellent too, helping develop Sigfrid as a fully-realised character, struggling with both the class situation and the influx of British workers that are taking the jobs while he and his co-workers strike and live in near-poverty. A beautiful film, sensitively handled by the director.

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An exceptional story about a woman learning to be an artist in a restrictive time and place. The story, images, and acting are magnificent. Please take time to see this reflectively. The characters are strong and three-dimensional. The choices they make in the early part of the 20th Century probably aren't ones we ourselves might choose. It is a movie which shows subtlety and nuances. My friends and I loved this film for the strength of the woman, her yearning for self-expression, her ability to have artistic vision in an era where there was no encouragement,the delicate balance of the relationships and limitation of choices--given the hard realities of money and social constraints. You will find it moving.

The story of the life of a more or less normal family as told by one of its daughters. The most interesting families deliver the most interesting stories and this is one of them - especially by the way it is told and shown. A pivotal event in the life of the family is the day where the mother wins a camera and starts using it to make pictures of everything she deems interesting and/or important. The story is constantly told using back-flashes and this works very well - as events roll by the definition of the family is fully developed and as one gets to know more and more of the people in the family one starts to understand why some things are done the way they are done. With each passing year in the story the bonds become closer and the pictures become clearer.

It's a fairly long film but given all the things that happen that doesn't hurt the film at all. The color scheme used is very fitting and gives a nice extra effect, the choice of music is good too. Story telling is enticing and acting is well beyond the bare necessities to keep the film alive. So, all in all, a most enjoyable watch.

8 out of 10 mugshots of the past

The title of this film is particularly apt in light of what it presents and how it does so. Obviously every photograph is an everlasting moment in itself but in this film they are moments that represent a time and a place. Maria Larsson's pictures show the plight of the poor in early 20th century Sweden; the Red Rallies that were sweeping through Europe and the coming of war through to the restoring of peace. All these events and how they affect the ordinary people of her little town are recorded faithfully by this simple downtrodden housewife in between fending off her drunken husband's advances and raising the seven or so children that result. While there isn't so much a plot to 'Everlasting Moments' there is still an engaging story. It opens in 1907 when Maria discovers a camera she had won some years before and put away and forgotten about. Times are hard and her first thought is to sell it and she heads to the local photographic shop run by Sebastien Federson. He manages to persuade her to wait a while, to try and get some use of the camera first before she decides to get rid of it and pretty soon Maria is hooked on her new hobby. Meanwhile her husband Sigge flits from job to job and pub to pub and makes home-life more and more a living hell. Maria keeps her camera a secret from him for as long as she can and uses it as her only means of escape – she can't possibly leave her marriage, tearing asunder what God has joined together. While Sigge is all but openly unfaithful she herself has a chaste, platonic love with her mentor Sebastien. As Everlasting Moments takes you on its journey you just go with the flow, you forget that at some point this film is going to come to an end and in a way you don't really want it to. The acting all round is excellent and appropriately enough the photography is striking. The entire film looks like a faded photograph from the era, it's shot in colour but you have to regularly remind yourself of the fact by spotting something of colour in the scene. This just adds to the atmosphere, the feeling that you are not watching a film set in the early 1900s but in fact at a play - being performed in the early 1900s.

Yes, it's a good movie with interesting, sympathetic characters. And it's about a time and place -- Sweden in the early 1900s -- that I, and likely many others, won't be familiar with. So a lot of the historical background was revealing.

But two hours-plus is just too long for a movie with little tension and no real climax. After about an hour and a half I thought "enough already."

Jan Treoll's film 'Everlasting Moments' tells the story of a poor Swedish family struggling to survive in the early years of the twentieth century; and how the family's mother copes with an abusive marriage in part through the hobby of photography. It's not a bad film per se, but it's very quiet and undramatic. Part of the problem is that the interest on photography seems arbitrary: the heroine could just as easily have found a purpose in life through a love of literature or dogs, or any of the other interests that help us find meaning in life. The heavy use of narration further undermines the sense of drama. It's based on a true story, but it's not so clear there's really much of a story to be told.

Everlasting Moments (2008)

This is a vivid, unsentimental, yet tender and loving portrayal of a Swedish seaside family in the early 20th Century. The brute is the father of the family, and yet he is fun and sometimes loving. The heroine is the mother, who suffers greatly, but who also can never quite break free of her husband. The children grow up and prosper, modestly, anyway, over the 15 years of the movie. And we come to see that this is pretty much the most common story of a working class family from that period, anywhere.

And there is a small extra interest, because the mother discovers a camera among the family things, and is persuaded to learn how to use it. The scenes, interspersed over the years, where she takes pictures and develops them in a makeshift darkroom are beautiful, and yet they are not (thankfully) overblown into something momentous and artistically profound.

My field happens to be the History of Photography, which I teach at a couple colleges here in Albany, and I have to say, they nailed the historical accuracy very well. I can't say for sure about when that camera was made, but it seems about right. More importantly, I can say that the style of the photographs is really typical for a talented, serious, dabbling amateur such as our leading woman. The size, the clarity, her care in holding it (even turning it horizontally for a key photograph), and the procedure in general is quite exactly how I would have advised a moviemaker to go about it. This helps not only people in the know (there aren't so many of us, I realize) but in general an historical validity in the bones of the movie.

As elegant as the movie is filmed (almost to excess, in a few scenes--the cinematography outclassed by the simple, gorgeous use of light throughout), it comes across as hard and true. The film is beautiful, but life is beautiful. It's not easy, it involves losing some battles, it involves giving up some dignity, but if you stay the course, as these people do in ways most contemporary families would not, there is some other kind of reward.

Jan Troell is the nestor in Swedish movies. He's got more than 40 years of experience. And you're aware of it here. Not a second too much in any scene. A total concentration in every millimeter.

It all takes place in Malmö, a city in southern Sweden, in the beginning of the 20th century. A worker with drinking and infidelity problems is married to this woman and they have plenty of children. It's a life of misery, but suddenly a new world opens to the woman. The world of photography. Another way of viewing.

After that nothing can really harm her. Not even the violence from her husband. Every detail is there it should be in this movie. Every button is at the right place in every suit, and it's also obvious for the audience what the director means by it.

To be shown at any film rookie school.

Emotional, engaging drama.

Set in Sweden in the early-1900s, the story of married couple, Maria (played by M0aria Heiskanen) and Sigfrid (played by Mikael Persbrandt), and their children. He is a drunk and abusive. She can definitely do a lot better, yet she sticks with him. Then she discovers photography...

Interesting story, and often a harrowing ordeal. Quite frustrating at times, especially every time his darker and jealous side is revealed and she still stays with him.

Does move slowly though, and the path it takes does seem a bit watered down. However, the final scenes are quite emotional, and do provide a fitting conclusion and a good point to the movie.

Good story about life in Sweden in the early 1900s. Here are descriptions good about growing up in the working class, and a turbulent marriage.

The film is about Maria Larsson and her family. Although the film is basically a drama about how hard life could be for those who were poor at this time, it is about much more.

The film is about following their dreams and how important it is to have real commitment. The protagonist is a fantastic photographer. Life is tough. There are many children as she must take care of. Despite this, we can follow her development and see how her talent evolves over several years.

Good person depictions characterizes this drama. Mikal Persbrandt as always good as the rough husband. The film is told through one of their children in retrospective. It works fine.

Recommended for those who enjoy good person drama, in a historic setting.

This is a beautiful and engaging story about Maria Larsonn. Her life, her passions and her family. It is a biography and though I loved it, I am not sure everybody will because it lacks the contrived dramatic moments and a big climax associated with such stories. Instead it is like life itself, stuff happens, more stuff happens and then you die. Well I hope I am not putting people off from watching this film because it is lovely film and deserves to be seen. I just wanted to remark and it is a little unconventional.

Though it seems that photography will become an important part in Maria's life, don't expect it to. It is just there in the background.

The plot itself is nothing much too talk about. It is more about the characters rather the plot here. Acting is certainly amazing which brings the characters to life.

Well, if it isn't a Swedish epic tale yet again. I have to admit, that even though I'm a big fan of Swedish films, this was just too much "I've seen this before".

OK. first the positive: Music was really nice and Maria Heiskanen in her role was superb. The visual aspects of the film was almost done for a Oscar type film, almost as it seemed to be planning it. But because I have had the chance to meet Jan Troell a couple of times, I must say that he's done the film with his heart and not with calculation.

But heart doesn't help when the film is too boring and there is too much story to tell. It doesn't hold and it has to jump time levels just to the tell the whole history.

I really wanted to like this film as I like the filmmaker a lot. But I couldn't. Michael Persbrandt does a powerful job, but a very similar role that he's done in many films. A bit of yelling and a intensive look. So the same thing. What's new in Swedish cinema? Well "Let the Right One In" is new.

I hope that this is not the last film from Mr. Troell and I hope to see one more masterpiece from him. Because I don't want this to bee his last film.

If you're searching for a historical period piece on Sweden's social history,or just hanker for a well written,directed,photographed & acted drama on family bonds,'Maria Larssons Eviga Ogonblick',or as it is being distributed in English speaking countries as 'Everlasting Moments' is the film for you. Sweden's Jan Troell (known in the U.S. for his 1971 film,'The Emigrants')directs,co-writes the screenplay (with Niklas Randstrom & Agneta Ulfsater Troell,based on a story by Ulfsater Troell),and photographs (with assistance from Mischa Gavrjusjov)this love letter to photography. The story concerns several years in the life of a housewife,named Maria Larsson (a care worn looking Maria Heiskanen),her mean,brute of an alcoholic husband,Sigge (Mikael Persbrandt),and their brood of children (with the narrative being told by their daughter,Maja (played by Callin Orhvall). Maria has won a camera in a lottery,and after is sits around for several years,is finally used for family portraits,special events,etc.,much to the chagrin of her controlling husband. What I truly admired about this film is that,in addition to being a chronicle of the tempestuous lives of the family,also acts as a history of Swedish social history as a backdrop (much like Bertolucci's '1900'). This is Swedish film making at it's best (it's a delight to look at,especially on a full screen,as well as it's story telling abilities). Well worth seeking out. Spoken in Swedish & Finnish with English subtitles. Not rated by the MPAA,this film has raunchy language,sexuality,and some disturbing moments of spouse abuse that will upset some,as well as pervasive alcoholism. Leave junior home.

The debate over whether photography can be considered an art form has been going on since the early 19th century, yet one thing is certain – to be successful, a photograph must combine both technical excellence and inspiration. Like most artistic endeavors, taking quality pictures can be a transforming experience. As photographer Jan Phillips stated, "There is something about this work, something healing about this search for the light." This was definitely the case for Maria (Maria Heiskanen), a beleaguered housewife in Jan Troell's lovely Everlasting Moments, who uses her camera as a means of saving her soul and probably her sanity.

The film, Sweden's submission for an Oscar in 2008 for Best Foreign Film, was adapted by Troell from a novel written by his wife Agneta that was based on the life of a member of her family, Maria Larsson. Set in Sweden in the early 1900s, the real Maria's life story and photographs are shown in the film which is brimming with period detail and strong characterizations. Maria must scrape out a living sewing and cleaning to support a family of seven children while putting up with philandering and abusive husband Sigfrid (Mikael Persbrandt), who works sporadically as a laborer when he is sober. Though he joins the local Temperance Society, his will is not very strong and he repeatedly falls off the wagon.

Up against repeated financial problems, Maria offers to sell the camera that she won in a lottery but is persuaded by the camera shop owner Sebastian Pedersen (Jesper Christensen) to first try and use it herself, though he agrees to purchase it in the future. Buoyed by Sebastian telling her that, "not everyone is endowed with the gift of seeing," Maria begins to take photos under Sebastian's guidance and is astonished at the wonders it performs. She begins to capture some of the everlasting moments of the film's title, using her gift of "seeing" to supplement the family income. Slowly she develops her art while having to constantly fend off Sigge's jealous tantrums.

Maria takes portraits of her neighbors at Christmas, a stunning image of a recently deceased young girl lying on a table, a parade of Socialists seen from her window, a street puppeteer, and an image of the shadow of a zeppelin flying overhead. Sebastian encourages Maria to develop her skills and is ecstatic when one of her photographs is used by the local newspaper. He offers her a job in the studio but she turns it down because of her family obligations. Troell even implies that the photographer has fallen in love with her but conventions at the time do not permit its expression.

The drama depicts Maria's courageous struggle to stay afloat financially when her husband is either not working or is sent to prison for drunkenness or threatening behavior towards his family. Daughter Maja (Callin Ohrvall), the film's narrator, helps the family considerably by taking care of her younger siblings and by working as a maid for a wealthy family until she is assaulted by the woman's brother. In spite of all logic and seeming common sense, she stays with Siegfried, influenced by her father's reminder of her sacred oath made during the wedding ceremony to stay together, "till death do us part." Everlasting Moments is rich in the quality of the performances, especially that of Maria Heiskanen as the courageous woman who breaks through her limitations of gender and class to experience life in a new way. Jesper Christiansen is equally strong as the devoted friend who encourages her to keep going when she wants to quit. Though Maria does not become famous or wealthy from taking pictures, her art allows her to keep up her spirits during her most difficult periods. Kudos are due to the immense talent of 78 year-old director Jan Troell, noted for The New Land and Hamsun, who, in Everlasting Moments, infuses the dark shadows of a troubled life with ineffable beauty.

There is a certain look, pace, feel and sensibility to the Swedish/Danish film-making style, particularly when depicting the horse and buggy era. This fine film by Jan Troell is a product of that aesthetic and brings to mind the work of other Scandinavian masters such as Ingmar Bergman, Bille August, Bo Wildeberg and Gabriel Axel. This is a story of simple people who struggle mightily against great odds, presented in such as way as to give us a visceral sense of their ordeals. Here is a director who can bring the distant past to vivid life and whose obvious love for his medium is reflected in the subject of the story he wrote himself. The period of the film is roughly 1907-1917 before Sweden became a social democratic welfare state and the story frequently touches on the class antagonisms that led to it. But there is virtually no point made in this film that lacks counterpoint, down to the very last line uttered before the closing credits. There are no easy answers here, no final, neat, beribboned conclusion that sends us away satisfied. Nothing sentimental to gush about, but something lasting, just as the film's title suggests.

In form, the film is a grown woman's narrated memoir that wavers in emphasis from her father to her mother. The father (acted with textured skill by Mikael Persbrandt) is alternately magnetic and obnoxious, sensitive and brutish, depending on his whim. When he drinks, which he does on impulse despite best intentions, he is a terrifying, overbearing boor; when he is sober and in a good mood, he is the dream father - the charming, strong, fun-loving pillar of the family. But this family is not lucky enough to have the latter without major doses of the former. Luckily, the mother (superbly played by Maria Heiskanen) has her head firmly screwed on and not only manages to endure her husband's abuses while raising seven children in poverty but also finds time to learn how to use a Contessa camera which the narration tell us she won in a lottery shortly before she married. When, in a fit of financial desperation during a strike that finds her husband unemployed, she asks the gentle proprietor of a photography studio (Jesper Christensen) about the value of the camera, he compassionately persuades her not to pawn it but to use it. She allows him to coach her into mastery of this new-fangled device, thereby launching a hobby that helps make ends meet and adds luster to her grim tenement life while bringing joy and wonder to her family and neighbors. Even her husband eventually overcomes his initial grudge against her new preoccupation.

The story seesaws from highs to lows, from bitter fights to tender reconciliations, from hopelessness to hope, with periodic moments of breathless suspense when life itself hangs by the slenderest thread. It depicts a society in transition, half in the Christian, semi-rural monarchic past and half in the secular, amoral, motorized future. In a sense, it is the story of Sweden itself. I couldn't help noting that the tenement shown in this film resembles the kind of building Greta Garbo was raised in. She was born in the same era, came from laboring parents and grew up to be absorbed by the new international technology of cinema, just as the heroine of this film is at one point enchanted by early motion pictures, to which she takes her children, leaving the grumbling, uncomprehending father to tend to his horse in the stable.

The cinematography makes even poverty look beautiful (perhaps a bit too much so) and each character is achingly well acted by a very well directed ensemble. The pace is rather slow, but there is so much to care about that the viewer willingly waits patiently for one scene to flow into the next. All in all, an outstanding work that seems to embody the very spirit of its own story – the everlasting moment captured by a camera in the hands of someone with the great gift of seeing.

There is still a place for the old tools and the old technologies. Despite the coming of Kindle, even Google's Eric Schmidt knows no better way to learn than to read a print book. Audiophiles know vinyl still sounds better than CD's, which in turn still sound better than MP3. The new technologies have their place. Their introduction stimulates the economy; they work better in certain contexts; they inspire new interest in the material they bear. Even a new pen might inspire one to write; a new computer, to do more research or writing. We don't have dip pens much any more, but they do still exist and have their use. Many still use so-called "outmoded" but artistically valid technologies. We still have fountain pens. We still need pencils.

And so it is, very often, with styles: when new ones come along, they don't necessarily render earlier ones useless. Photography has not wiped out painting. Non-objective painting has not wiped out magic realism. Rap hasn't eliminated pretty tunes. The same is true for movies. Old-fashioned ones still have their place.But with the arts, if you're going to be retro, you have to prove you had a good reason for it. Andrzej Wajda's 'Katyn' (2007) and Jan Troell's 'Everlasting Moments'(2008) are test cases on this issue.

Both are new movies that are traditional in their look, outlook, pace, and subject matter. 'Katyn' proves its worth more quickly, because it concerns an historical event, one that was hidden from view. The massacre of Polish officers by Russians in WWII and the attempt to blame it all on the Germans is history that needed to be told; it's the history of Wajda's own father, one of the slaughtered officers. Troell's film, concerning a working class Swedish family early in the last century, isn't quite as essential. Its Hallmark-sounding title is a hint that it's more nostalgia than history, and the story it tells, of a boorish husband and a wife struggling for independence, is in some ways only marginally memorable.

'Katyn' is a film of slow cumulative power. It presents the atrocity before, during, and after through families and individuals. It depicts how people risked torture or extermination to resist the cover-up, and it ends with devastating simplicity by re-staging how the killing was done, very specifically what it looked and sounded like. Not much in 'Katyn' either in content or style seems distinctly 21st-century. Except for one thing: this story hasn't been told before. Now it has been, and beautifully. And since it concerns events of sixty years ago, an old-fashioned style is appropriate to it, as well as being a style of which Wajda is a master. The film may seem retro and boring to young viewers. Their cry, and others', sometimes is that WWII, especially the Holocaust (which perhaps by association links in with other massacres of the War), has been "done to death." (This is mainly just because there have been four or five well-promoted films on the subject in recent months.) But that is really nonsense. Some subjects are never sufficiently examined and can never be overdone, as long as an artist with a fresh angle "does" it.

It's valid however, to say that Jan Troell's earlier period family sagas were richer and more involving than his new 'Everlasting Moments.' The whole thing is that this film is about a pretty ordinary Swedish family. But the interest of the film isn't so much in the small-town working-class family, the seven kids, the big womanizing drunkard father. It's in the interface between the wife, Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen) and the film's style. And this is where the film gradually but amply justifies itself. Heiskanen's face, often and lovingly filmed in closeup, is more memorable than any of the faces in 'Katyn.' The visuals consciously (and often remarkably) echo the subtle, even, naturally lighted tonalities of old glass plate negatives. (Early photographic equipment isn't as handy as today's, but that doesn't mean the photographs were inferior aesthetically.)

Maria, wife of the cheery, powerful, but dangerous Sigge (Mikael Persbrandt), marries him owning a valuable camera she's won in a lottery. When things get tough, she decides to sell it. This leads her to go to Sebastian Pedersen (Jesper Christensen), a photographer with a shop, who refuses to let her sell it and instead takes her under his wing and falls quietly in love with her. Throughout the film and Sigge's skullduggeries and the family's economic travails, Maria uses the camera with increasing artistry. Along with this, the sweet platonic love affair with Sebastian continues, and he woos her with equipment, paper, plates, and lessons in developing photographs. The film is a celebration of the addictiveness of photography and the magic that happens in the darkroom. (Alas for digital camera users, to have lost that alchemical mystery!)

The relationship between Maria and Sebastian would be worth a subtler, richer film by itself. But Troell likes family sagas. And history and sociology call upon him to focus on Sigge and the seven children. Unfortunately, though the film is narrated by eldest daughter Maja (Callin Ohrvall) and that adds logic to the focus on the mother, few of the other children are well individualized. The film is somewhat at cross purposes this way, with its unique story about a woman artist who's also a passionately dedicated mother constantly interrupted by its lumbering family history. (But that was also Maria's life.) Unlike other Troell films, this feels sometimes too long, sometimes too short. But despite the conventional, old fashioned film-making or perhaps because of it, the photographic story and the counterpoint in the film's own on screen images, 'Everlasting Moments' more than justifies its existence. Perhaps not as historically essential as Wajda's 'Karyn,' for many of us, and particularly for a lover of still photography (and darkroom magic) like myself, Troell's film, whether "essential" or not, winds up being more emotionally involving.