Apflickorna

Watching this film I was reminded of a hard-to-define need for ethical treatment of characters and issues in a film. By that I don't mean films can't describe ethically challenging or ambivalent situations, they should. But there should be a sense of commitment to the characters and the issues. This film was lacking in that. As a result, it felt pointless and disturbing.

The plot centers around two teenage girls who are competing in the sport that consists of doing gymnastics on top of a galloping horse. One, two, three girls on a single horse running in circles to the sound of a whiplash. I would like to see this sport, which completely seems to forget the horse is sentient, forgotten. The film could have used it as a metaphor, but I don't think it did. I think the horse was ignored in the meta level as well. This is the kind of lack of commitment I mean.

Harrowing things happen to the teenage girls and a seven-year-old little sister. The viewer is presented with hardly any tools to understand them or care for them. Thus, it feels they are left alone. There is one illuminating scene though: Cassandra asks Emma what she wants (a question misplaced, as it seems to be Cassandra at that moment who is acting out of unclear desires) and Emma replies "I want to be like I was before".

As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with the acting or the technical work of the crew.

Lisa Aschan is a director rookie and this is really promising.

Two young girls are training voltige, the kind of competition there you make acrobatic moves on a horse's back. They have a relation, complete with hot feelings and jealousy, but without sex. It's a power struggle, but most of all it's a power struggle within one of the girls. Does she want control or life? You can't say.

Great feeling for what the camera can express here. Great cuts, great rhythm. The story is however not so uncommon as we are expected to believe. The quality lies in what the lens registrates. And there will hopefully be much more to come from this director.

Swedish first-timer Lisa Aschan's She Monkeys is like Céline Sciamma's 2007 French coming-of-ager Water Lilies/Naissance des pieuvres, about two girls who bond around a challenging female sport, in Water Lilies water ballet, and here, equestrian gymnastics. There is a popular, or more confident, girl, and the more timid newcomer, though the distinction gets twisted along the way when the strong girl turns out not to be invincible. Here it's introverted Emma (Mathilda Paradeiser) and more experienced equestrian Cassandra (Linda Molin), who become playful friends, and later when Emma turns out to be strong and promising, rivals. This is different from the French film in that the two challenge each other to more real wrongdoing, and Emma has a seven-year-old sister Sara (Isabella Lindquist), whose desire to become a woman and precocious lust for her babysitter cousin Sebastian (Kevin Caicedo Vega) leads her to extravagances of her own. In fact when the energy begins to fade in the Cassandra-Emma relationship, Sara comes in handy by providing comic relief that also pushes boundaries a bit.

She Monkeys may push boundaries a bit more, but it is less successful at showing its two "girlfriends" in a real social context than the French film is. Nonetheless She Monkeys clearly establishes that Lisa Ashan, whose first feature this is as Water Lilies was Sciamma's, is a talent to watch with a distinctive style.

Apflickorna (the original title) is the fifth and last of a series of low budget first films chosen by competition for the Swedish Film Institute's Rookie Project. It won the Gothenberg, Sweden festival's Nordic film prize and critics' award. Seen and reviewed as part of the San Francisco film festival of 2011, this debuted in the US at Tribeca in 2010.

I have had some level of expectations from this film after reading a description and its plot seemed to be quite interesting. However all has turned into a quite drowsy film with slow action which was promised to be very different. Instead of emotional and passionate relation and even more ardent rivalry with complex scheme of mutual interactions we get a snail-paced development of the plot and two teens who are way too introvertic and timid to be truly passionate in anything. I didn't see here any hard situations with rivalry and any difficult situations, misunderstandings etc. caused by that. For sure not at the level it was expected (and promised) from the beginning. That story could have been interesting if had been directed in more clever and especially emotional way to reveal true passion if two lovers mixed with success & accolade rivalry. If I wanna see passion plus rivalry which leads to obsession I play movies like "Whiplash" or "Prestige".

Yes, this film unravels slowly... like a Swedish winter, but it is a fascinating glimpse, I think, into female psychology in general (not just Swedish). The film is very sly, and you won't appreciate the bitter, yet kinda funny, poetic justice of the plot... until the final scene. Highly recommended. Gorgeous young actresses in the leading roles, and lovely Swedish scenery abounds. The film is poetic and even somewhat oneiric, and, in its glacial ellipticality perhaps owes more to old Ingmar Bergman films than it does to more recent Swedish fare. Indeed, the story of the love/hate relationship between two young women seems a nod to Bergman's 1966 classic, Persona. So universal is the the theme of this film that one could almost comprehend the story without subtitles and not knowing Swedish. A real gem.