Fyra nyanser av brunt

A Swedish friend of mine sent me a DVD of this earlier this year; it has yet to arrive in Britain in any form and it seems to be impossible to order the DVD over the web. In the absence of circulating copies, I have simply been boring anyone who will listen about this amazing film.

'Four Shades of Brown' was funded by Swedish state TV, and written, performed and directed by the Killinggagets group who are well known in Sweden as a comedy troupe. The film is a collection of stories about contemporary Swedish life: the family of a dead horse trainer gather to mourn his passing, an elderly couple on tour with their magic act visit their uptight son in his coastal hotel and pick up an admirer en route, a man tries to connect with his teenage son by showing him the work he does at the pet crematorium, and a weekly 'cookery class' has turned into an encounter group where lost souls discuss their troubled lives. A couple of the strands interconnect: and some people have drawn comparisons with 'Magnolia', but frankly this film is far more original. It manages to be incredibly funny, yet in the end it addresses some very serious issues head-on. This is the most controversial aspect of the film, and on paper it might seem tasteless and impossible to bring off, but it works brilliantly and that on its own is an incredible achievement. This film is quite unique and easily the most astonishing drama to have emerged from a major TV network since the original BBC version of Dennis Potter's 'The Singing Detective' in 1986 (although in some ways it also reminds me of the dark, dark satire of British comedian Chris Morris). It's brave and wonderful and a shining example of what an enlightened state broadcasting system can achieve: Sveriges TV puts the 21st Century BBC to shame.

I visited Stockholm last month and bought several copies of the DVD for friends: but it would be so much easier if some enterprising company gave the DVD a UK release soon. I live in hope.

This movie must be exported to the rest of the world! An absolute masterpiece, with a both bizarre and grim film about four different stories from four different locations in Sweden. The one with the newly renovated hotel with the improper wooden figure of an old finance minister is absolutely the best of the four, odd story about love or career. I would love to see all four as a film on their own they can be so much more extended.

Also the unique pause in the middle is something I've never seen before.

Can't wait for the series (if they're doing one) or the extended DVD. Apparently they had cut out a lot to fit it in to just 3,5 hours.

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.

During the making of this movie I once caught a statement on television about it. Something like: "Is Killinggänget now taking off Nazism?"

So, my comprehension of this movie, was from the beginning to get a notion of Nazism. When recently seeing this movie in the TV-version I had this filter before me and it wasn't difficult to see this.

Strangely enough I haven't met this way of interpreting the film ever since I first heard it.

These are the things I found in "Four shades of brown". In all four of the stories the lack of empathy leads to disaster:

1. The crematory-worker shows no realistic empathy to the dead animals or to those who had to say goodbye to them. In the crematory-room in dealing with death and fire it's almost like a cheerful game to him. The seriousness of death and fire is not emphasized by the father and his boy accordingly, in ignorance pushes a button that leads to the disaster that injures his father severely.

Possible lesson: The importance of showing the young adequate emotions. When they grow up they need to know what behavior leads to disaster and what emotions lead to good.

2.The magician maneuvers his wife like an invisible puppeteer. Just when she thinks she has begun to cut off the strings to the masters hand, reaching for personality, integrity and joy, he pulls hard and she is back in desolation and despair.

Their son has tried to revolt in creating his own life with perfection and "good" taste in opposite to his parents "bad" taste. The real problem he is carrying within is far from comprehensible to him: His fathers behavior passes on when suffocating his own wife in his spotless environment.

Possible lesson: Oppression breeds bondage.

3.The father who was abused as a child passes on sadism to his children when he cheats them on their inheritance. He robs them of their childhood and in the end even of their inheritance.

Possible lesson: When no love given you cannot give any.

4.The fathers abuse of his daughter creates in her a ruthless revenger with sadistic aggression. Here the ice cold Nazi-sadism becomes very obvious in physical violence. It gives a possible background and a somewhat plausible explanation to the actions of young "scin-head"-nazists behavior when oppressing others.

Possible lesson? : Can Nazism take birth in a pervert home?

Can the hideous consequence of ignoring empathy in family life, in the long run, be that room is given to sadistic Nazism ?

Very seldom does a movie contains so much. It reveals little by little as I meditate on it. I consider it brilliantly "painted" and the actors are superb. Especially the nice-seeming bloke played by Ulf Brunnberg that turns out to be the worst of all..

I didn't know what to expect from this hugely popular (and hilarious) Swedish comedy & satire team, as they released their first feature film. More broad satire? Well, we do get four contemporary, exceptionally memorable tales of family pains, generation gaps and fatherhood, in particular. But it's drama, thankfully, and what drama! Epic in its scope, as each episode is from carefully picked, geographically different parts of Sweden. But each story could seriously carry a whole movie, if expanded separately.

It's dark, twisted, harrowing, yet massively entertaining and breathtakingly executed. Script, acting and cinematography are absolute world class, as three hours seem to get by in a blink! It's four shades of mastery, and easily one of the best films in the nations' cinema history. It's Sweden's answer to "Short cuts" or "Magnolia", if you like, and instantly on par with those!

9 out of 10 from Ozjeppe