Stockholm My Love

Finally! a 100% cure for insomnia. Commentary states Sweden is one of the happiest countries in the world - you certainly would not get that impression from this melancholic, downbeat, tedious, navel-gazing film consisting of a series of gloomy views of Stockholm in winter. If you make to the end credits, you may need to call the Samaritans, or celebrate your masochism..

Watching this film about a city I love reminded me of French cinema In the 60's - narcissistic, nihilistic and claustrophobic, there was nothing to enjoy.

I didn't watch the whole film - life is too short.

An architect (Neneh Cherry) skips her lecture on Swedish architecture and wanders around Stockholm coming to terms with a fatal road accident she was involved in a year ago.

There is only one character, who speaks predominantly as a voice over. This is varied by interludes of Swedish music, including songs by Cherry herself, whose pleasing voice lends itself to narration. In turns, she explains Stockholm's notable buildings, recounts the story of the accident, and muses philosophically, as one does on long walks.

The film lacks not only plot, but purpose. We learn little about Stockholm, and the philosophising is shallow and leads nowhere, though the film is the better for not trying to put over any particular political or moral point. Stockholm does not look particularly attractive, and the music is not memorable. There is, however, something about the film that has stayed with me: a sense of place, and of love for that place, and beauty in the mundane; the idea that whatever you look closely at seems to look back at you. Perhaps we do not look at our surroundings closely enough.

This is not a film for everyone, or indeed for anyone not in the mood for a guided cinematic meditation set in a rather bleak urban environment. If you don't 'get' slow cinema (yes, that is a thing) then this is not for you.

This film is certainly not a drama, nor a musical (as the IMdB genre tags have it), though a dramatic event and music are central to its purpose. And it's not 'easy viewing'. It's been described here as boring and pretentious, and such a description cannot easily be dismissed. And yet, at the end I decided it had been time well spent, though perhaps a little less time might have been adequate for its task. Some of the images are very beautiful indeed and relate to the fact that the narrator (and only character) is an architect. She uses her reflections on certain places in Stockholm (especially churches) as a way of coming to terms with her involvement in a fatal road accident. Such a coming-to-terms is a slow and often repetitive process, and although at times the film is turgid, it ultimately feels meditative and redemptive.

It would have been much better if it had been a short film.