CGA_Soupdragon

49 up was screened here i two episodes. Recent meetings with the participants were interwoven with flashbacks from the earlier interviews at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and 42. So beautifully put together. No sensationalism. No hopping about. Each interview subject was able to unfurl their lives in a steady pace that kept me enthralled throughout.

It's a breathtaking idea that grew out of an interest in finding out what happened to the original group after another 7 years when the children had become 14. The producers have kept in touch and most of the subjects have been more or less willing to be interviewed in the subsequent years.

This series of interviews, especially seen in the light of the fact that I am nearly as old as the people involved in this project, gave me so much. Seeing people live their lives, suffering set-backs, dealing with life's many stumbling blocks, gaining unexpected insights into themselves and their loved ones makes for a very gripping and fulfilling experience.

Absolutely marvelous. A gem.

In the early 1990's a person shoots immigrant males in the Stockholm area. Some of the witnesses describe a red dot of light. The shooter was using a gun mounted with a laser sight.

The series, in three feature-length parts, recounts the true events leading up to the arrest of one of Sweden's most wanted criminals.

We see the danish actor, David Dencik -- a relatively fresh face in Sweden, portray Ausonius, a person totally devoid of the tools for proper social contact. It's agonizing to see Ausonius feeble attempts at interacting with other people. The moment the other person fails to match Ausonius' own picture of the world, a venomous hate boils up and over. Dencik's portrayal is very finely balanced. Especially as his role is in three parts.

Firstly, Ausonius' time as a student before his shooting spree, along with a troubled time in the army during conscription.

Secondly the period during the actual shootings/bank robberies.

And thirdly, scenes from his exclusive interviews with Gellert Tamas, a journalist on who's book this series is based.

These three parts are threaded, so that a more complete portrait of Ausonius' psyche can be painted. The patching of the scenes is a way of driving home the fact that Ausonius' behaviour has grown out of a troubled background coupled with a twisted view of his surroundings. Rather that showing the events purely chronologically, the filmmakers have opted for a style as if one has a book and needs to turn back to a earlier part to be able to study a point in time more closely.

The other main thread in the series is the painstaking police-work. The actual police hunt is a plodding affair. Because of the fact that Ausonius' crimes (the "indiscriminate" shooting of members of the male public with darker skin colour than Ausonius' own and a long string of bank robberies) were seemingly random, seemingly perpetrated by different people, the police took a very long time to focus on him.

When, in the third programme, the police receive a psychological picture of the culprit, another policeman (working on the murder of Olof Palme) remembers an earlier suspect from that investigation. The results of the profile match Ausonius psychological and active history exactly.

From that moment on, Ausonius' days at large were numbered. Ausonius' meticulously deranged plans finally become his own trap as police, needing more evidence of his activities, are tailing him and are present when he comes running out of a bank after the last of his robberies.

Lasermannen is a superb series. It oozes a creepy, realistic quality. The tired detectives, frustrated by yet more weird shootings and crazy, irrational behaviour to follow-up. Bewildered people that knew Ausonius and had to deal with him in person. Along with the victims themselves, the horribly unfortunate people shot at random and the people caught up in his other criminal behaviour.

Sad, sickening events that helped create a nasty climate in Sweden at that time.

Grim, of course, but it is also a high point in Swedish television production.

I finally caught up with the film on DVD, after missing its cinema release and just not having the urge to see it until now. It has had some rather bad press, so I wasn't actually expecting very much.

One of the reasons I have waited so long was to let my son, (who is now eight) grow up a bit before seeing it. He was interested in the tie-in products filling the shelves in all the stores on release. A blanket-marketing ploy that is becoming more and more hysterical, I fear.

Another was that I was wary of renting it as the Hulk character has been rather mal-treated in live-action form.

Until Ang Lee's film.

Firstly, this isn't by any stretch of the imagination, a kids' film. Though my younger children watched it, it gave them serious food for thought about what scientists do to animals and people in the name of science. My oldest was enthralled. She appreciated Lee's magnificent use of the film medium.

This is a very dark movie. The origin-story has been manipulated and updated linking the two lead characters (Bana and Connelly) in a sorrowful, fearful event that happened to them both in their childhood. Nice touch.

"Banner's" (Eric Bana's) father (played by Nick Nolte) shuffles back into his life after 30 years incarceration for causing the events that had traumatized the young Banner. Banner later finds that his father had "experimented" on him when they were still a whole family. This creepy device effectively modernizes the story and it's ultimate revelation is a clever way of releasing the pent-up rage that Banner jr has locked within his mind. This rage feeds the Hulk. Banner finally becomes the Hulk after some incredible bravery in the lab.

The film's effects are superb. I am a very happy viewer. This is great cinema. A wonderful adaptation of a tortured, misunderstood human being.

Highly recommended, by me, for true Hulk fans.