Apflickorna

Alright, the DVD cover has actress Mathilda Paradeiser standing and holding a gun, which pretty much Sells the movie on a wrong Foundation. Sure there was a gun in the movie, but it wasn't a particularly big part of the story or the movie that it should be included on the movie cover.

While the acting of Mathilda Paradeiser (playing Emma) and Linda Molin (playing Cassandra) was quite good and nicely carried the movie, then they were not able to save the awful script and storyline. It was as if director Lisa Aschan was abruptly cut short before having the chance to tie the ends together and actually make this a coherent and interesting story.

"Apflickorna", its original Swedish title, is unfathomably slow paced and took an hour and twenty-four minutes to tell almost nothing. There is a sort of beaten down and depressing sensation all throughout the entire movie, which in itself was a good achievement in setting the mood.

It was a struggle to get through this movie, and the constant hope of it picking up pace and becoming entertaining just never rooted and took place.

Now watched, this movie will be put on the shelf to gather dust and slowly fade into oblivion.

Ignore the movie poster with the lead actress holding a rifle with menace in her eyes. Nothing happens even close to the implied violence. Two teen girls compete for some obscure sport riding horses while doing gymnastics. They come close to a lesbian relationship but it never happens. A seven year old girl acts inappropriately for her age with scenes that made me nauseous. The film goes nowhere and I barely made it through this meaningless drama.

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.

More powerfully tense than many thrillers full of action and blood, this finds the terror in the small gestures of growing up, and the enormous implications behind them.

In the main story, adolescent Emma befriends cool girl Cassandra as they train to be part of a team that does gymnastics on horseback. Both friends and rivals, director Aschan manages to load almost every scene between the two with incredible unease. It seems as if at any moment they are either going to tear each others clothes off and make love, or kill each other, or kill someone else -- any and all combinations seem possible as they test their limits on the ragged edge of adulthood.

At the same time, Emma's 7 year old sister Sara is pushed by the world around her to become aware of her body with alternating pride, curiosity and shame, and her nascent sexuality leads to some wildly uncomfortable scenes with the adult men in her family. This never crossed the line into exploitation, but it effectively made me want to jump out of my skin, while making me ponder the deeper thematic and psychological/social issues.

One thing bothered me; the very end of the film seemed to over-simplify the mysterious complexity of much that had preceded it, reducing the story to something more pedestrian, and taking some of the considerable wind out of the film's sails. But this is still one of the better films about the terrors of youthful sexuality I've seen in a long while.

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.