Lithivm

I recently had the opportunity to see Lithium at a local film festival. This film was not only the best film I saw at the festival, but one of the best films that I've seen in a long time.

The story takes place in Stockholm, Sweeden and revolves around a young girl who is working as an assistant journalist for a small paper. The girl soon becomes obsessed with a local story about a series of unsolved murders that have taken place, and becomes determined to find the killer on her own.

The director's unique, "hand held" style of filming combined with a very effective use of music and sound and a great story, make this a fascinating film.

If you like a good thriller that will keep you glued to the edge of your seat until the very end, this is a must see film!

As one of the few people unlucky enough to have paid for a cinema ticket to see "Lithivm", I have to agree with a Swedish film critic who called this film "Probably the worst film in the history of Swedish Cinema" (all other big city critics tended to agree, more or less).

Let's start with what the film does NOT have: It completely lacks story and comprehensible plot, the script has been written without even the slightest bit of research, it does not have a single piece of dialogue that feels natural; this paired with an utter lack of direction makes not only the amateur actors, but even the professional, good actors (who for unknown reasons took part in this thing) look absolutely ridiculous.

The film features irritating editing, and, most of all, it has a cinematic style that is simply nauseating. It was, for no particular reason, shot on (anamorphic) 16mm reversal colour film, with a blow up to 35mm scope. In short, this means the film is grainier than your Uncle Walt's old home movies from the 70's. Add to this the fact that the film has not been lit AT ALL, making it murky and dark at best. To finish off my comments on the "cinematography", it was shot hand held, something that seems to be in fashion lately. That's OK when you do it for a reason, but that doesn't seem to be the case with this film. Also, the hand held work seems to have been done by someone taking pride in constantly shaking the camera energetically, and jumping, not walking, whenever movement is called for. The whole thing actually made me feel physically ill after half an hour (this is the first time that has ever happened to me). I'm still amazed I didn't walk out of the cinema, I suppose having paid for a ticket combined with the jawdropping stupidity of the film made me stay to the dreary end.

The film well deservedly bombed completely in Sweden, despite a surprisingly large advertising campaign, and I was awestruck that it's been selected for inclusion in the Hollywood Film Festival. Why? The Millennium Turkey Awards (should there ever be such a thing) would have been so much more appropriate.

So, is there nothing good about the film? Actually there is. Out of the 2 hrs and 7 minutes running time, about 15 seconds worth of footage looks really cool. It's: 1. The main title, one of the best looking I've seen in a Swedish film, and 2. a bit with a corpse appearing in a mirror about half way through; the only slightly scary/interesting moment in a film that claims to be a thriller...

To conclude, and to answer the question made in the Summary above, YES, this is positively the worst Swedish film ever made, and you will do yourself a big favour by not watching it. Ever.

The young director of this film is obviously aiming for a gritty, "Dogme-95" look and feel - something that worked well for another contemporary Swedish film, "F**king Amal" ("Show Me Love" in the U.S.). However, here it is merely a shallow exercise in stylistics, supporting a moronic story about a young journalist who pursues a man she believes is a serial killer. Of course he is, but that doesn't stop the journalist from doing some insanely stupid things - she even goes to the man's house and wraps his tie around her neck, asking him to strangle her! Moreover, several scenes where we apparently go "inside the head" of the killer just come across as silly.

Despite a few random moments of inspiration, the film as a whole is a pretentious, overlong mess, thoroughly ugly in every respect. Somebody in Sweden was shocked that this was included in the Hollywood Film Festival. Don't be shocked - that festival included several of the worst films I saw in 1999. There were perhaps 20 people in the audience when I sat down to watch "Lithivm;" by the time the film was over, perhaps 5 were left. No doubt masochists like myself.

Lithivm is without doubt the worst Swedish film ever. Fredrik Dolk has an habit to end up in very strange films, like Sektor 236 and Nattbus 807 but this flick has to take the price. The movie is on crack, to plot is all over the place and all the actors, with the exception of Fredrik Dolk are terrible. Björn Granath overacts like a maniac and it seems he might have done this on purpose realizing how horrible the film was.

The big irony is that this flick is one of those typical Swedish drama movies that we poor Swedes has to endure, because they are "artisitic" and "has a point".

Murders are being commited in Stockholm, and there is obviously a serial-killer around. Some quite stupid girl working as a journalist assistant starts to look into the case, determined to find the murderer.

The characters are realistic, and the filming is like in "NYPD Blue", with (intended) poor picture quality. A serial-killer case is not exactly an original plot, but it works out OK much due to the movie's creepy atmosphere.

If you like murder investigation movies, check it out.