Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick

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.

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.

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

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.