Tre solar

As happens, one's own views on a particular movie will vary the majority received opinion. Most of the time, the reason for an under- or over-rating is comprehensible. In the present case, however, I am at a complete loss as to understand such an extraordinarily low vote. Is this the same movie that I saw? The date, the cast and plot description would indicate that it is. The only reason I can think of is that since the other reviewers currently listed are Swedish, perhaps the majority of ratings are from Swedes also. Is a native Swede, therefore, able to pick out some particular aspect of the film which I was oblivious too - a cultural or linguistic point perhaps? A brief look at the film will be required first. Three Suns is set in Sweden in the Middle Ages. Some of the men have left to join the crusades, and the black death is a recent arrival. The film focuses on one woman who is waiting for news about her husband, Ulf. Upon hearing about his imminent return, she leaves her two children in the care of her father in law and sets out for the coast to meet him there. Without giving away too much of the slender plot, she meets various people, good , bad, generous, selfish, infectious, healthy, along the way.

Generically speaking, then, this is a road movie, the journey of a woman done very much in a woman's terms - and I think this is where so many of the negative reviews stem from, not out of conscious sexism, but from the terms on which this journey is carried out, its tempo, its motivation and its denouement. Without wishing to push a particular stereotype, I think it is possible to comprehend much of the action in terms of a womanly response to certain situations, complete with certain foibles like impatience, vanity, impulsiveness and the occasional lapse of logic. The action makes more sense when seen in this light, with the only caveat being whether a woman would have been permitted to behave in such a manner at such a time in history, or be allowed to express so openly her opinions and attitudes. As for the other characters, I found them utterly believable, especially insofar as superstition and selfishness surge forth when disaster seems imminent.

As for the actors, I thought they did well. I haven't seen many recent Swedish films, so wasn't thinking about how a particular actor or actress usually looked (something which also seems to have irked some reviewers). Nor was I particularly distressed by the wigs, having had the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy to get used to them. The clothing, buildings, carriages, and so on, all seemed authentic enough to my untrained eye. The scenery was lovely to look at, and in my mind was the high point of the film. As for the language, I was reading the subtitles, so the subtleties of older versus modern Swedish were not an issue for me - the language in the subtitles seemed appropriate enough, with no glaring lapses into modern idioms. The dialogue was fairly standard, with occasional humour. There is none of the pondering depth found in, say 'The Seventh Seal', set in a similar time and place, but there is enough to occupy the viewer in the simple human interactions. The music was standard, but pleasant, complimenting the action well.

For me, this was, at face value, an enjoyable film. It was hardly earth-shatteringly original, but was competently done, with the interesting setting and attractive photography making up for a relatively uncomplicated plot, and some unusualness regarding character actions and motivations, which I've examined in this review already. I'm glad I took a risk on this one, in spite of its incomprehensibly poor rating.

"Tre Solar" could have been the top Swedish movie of the year, instead it is rather the low-point for the last five years. It's surprising why - we have the current Swedish actor elites, nice filming and authentic outfits and environments. Yet, tre solar doesn't pull much off - due to the really lame script. For minutes barely ANYTHING happens. Woman walks in, sees man, talks to him, he answers in absent words, tragic discover. Next scene. Repeats again. I have absolutely no idea what went wrong during the production, but it seems very strange to me that actors with such experience as these, making all the top roles in recent movies, wouldn't see this coming. Perhaps "Tre Solar" is the perfect example of the majority of Swedish films - some wish-to-be-made movie is granted financial support not because it is something people want to see on the big screen, but rather because it seems like an interesting aim to some people (namely the academy granting money to support Swedish film-making). Much as it pains me, but Tre Solar cannot earn more than 2/10 by me.

Alot of the negative criticism this movie has gotten seems to concentrate on the wigs. Personally I don't think that's got anything to do with why the movie isn't good. The wigs didn't bother me at all actually. Overall I thought the whole production seemed quite serious and it looked good to me and didnt detract from the movie.

The thing that puts this movie down is the script and directing. It's absolutely terrible. And I'm not kidding here. It seems like something I wrote back in fourth grade. And the way they try to put humour into it. It's pretty hilarious, not due to the jokes, but due to it being so utterly ridiculous.

And it's not particularly true to that age either. I mean people didn't call the plague "the plague" back then. They called it the "big death". Also they had no idea that the rats were the ones spreading the disease either so there's no reason for the characters of the movie to fear the rats so much.

I dont really know what this movie wants. It seems like half of the time they're trying to have a history lesson and the other they're trying to be funny. And inbetween they're just riding on horses. There's no red line connecting it at all. I'll admit it gave me a few laughs but that was mostly due to the horses having so short legs making them look ridiculous when they galloped. But all in all this isn't a movie to see if your not a moviebuff like myself.

3/10

I came here and read the reviews before I watched this on TV last night. After reading the bad reviews here I thought "it can't be that bad surely, it is at least watchable for novelty value... I like nordic films so from that perspective sure I can get something out of it...". I wish I hadn't wasted my time. It is 100 mins of really badly scripted, utterly irrational nonsense about someone who the script writers can't decide how her emotions and actions should resemble each other, in a continuous manner with regards to the plot, and therefore ends up looking ridiculous and being forgettable. (Forgettable other than the fact I will continue to rue wasting 2 hrs of my life).

There is just no point to this movie. And no I don't "not get it", but what's it about? A woman loves her husband? not overly deep. Human relationships? The weakest movie on this topic I have seen for quite a while. A history movie? The era and the plague don't come in to it at all other than excuses to make the ridiculous script lines excusable on the basis of something like "it's set centuries ago, people talked crazily back then". A middle-ages Odyssee? Stick with the ancient Greek one.

I am just glad I can't speak Swedish (and had to read subtitles), when you listen to the talking you can just tell it would be even more embarrassing to listen to it proper than it would be reading the subtitles.

Sorry about my crappy English. It isn't easy to write this comment without laughing...

And the award for worse wig ever goes to... The entire cast of "Tre Solar"!

I don't think I've ever laughed this much to a Swedish movie before and I doubt that I ever will. This is so bad that... that... I can't find the words to describe how awful this really is. Throughout the entire film I excpected Terry Gilliam & C/o to show up, banging coconuts together, pretending to ride imaginary horses.

Finally, I beg to the producers to NEVER ever show this film outside Swedish boarders. We can't let anybody think Swedish cinema stinks this much. Because if you do, nobody is gonna give us foreign money so we can film the books about Arn.