1 review
I'm not nearly as qualified to review this as someone who actually speaks Swedish at all. (I actually had a Swedish grandmother, but even if she was still alive, I couldn't see asking her to sit down and translate THIS movie for me). But until a bilingual Swede (with way too much time on his or her hands) comes along, I'll give it a shot.
This film kind of resembles the early Ingemar Bergman film "Summer of Monika" (released in the US as "Monica--Story of a Bad Girl") and the later Christina Lindberg film "Anita" (recently released on DVD). It is also somewhat similar to the seminal Swedish sex film "I Am Curious Yellow", but without the tedious political diatribes (that movie showed that sex-hungry audiences in the 1960's would apparently watch ANYTHING to see some skin). The lead Solveig Anderson, however, is much more in the class of Christina Lindberg (with whom she starred in several later movies) than the downright homely female star of "I Am Curious Yellow". Of course, unlike any of the other films mentioned, this film was obviously aimed much more at a home-country Swedish audience than an international one. In fact, the plot about a teenage girl who scandalizes her entire small-town by having sex with various men sometimes for money(or a candy bar)probably would have perplexed the international audience who pretty much believed at the time that ALL young Swedish women were like this. The girl is put on trial for exposing herself to a homeless man and at said trial the hypocrisy of town is revealed since some of the much more respectable local men were also dipping their wicks in the the willing Eva. (I have no idea why she's referred to as a "half virgin" in the to the title, since she's clearly not even half virginal).
Sex-wise this is not a particularly strong movie, but personally I prefer these genuinely pretty Swedish girls-next-door types like Anderson or Lindberg to the Times Square skanks that were in most American sex films of that era, and certainly to the silicone-enhanced brides of Frankenstein you generally find in sex movies today. Of course, it's best not to watch a movie like this for the relatively tame sex scenes, but rather as a nostalgic window into a different time or different culture (and these local films often reveal more about a particular culture than the high-brow "art" films they release to the world). Obviously, this isn't Bergman, but it seems interesting (and would probably be even more so if they ever release it with English subtitles and I know what the hell anyone is saying).
This film kind of resembles the early Ingemar Bergman film "Summer of Monika" (released in the US as "Monica--Story of a Bad Girl") and the later Christina Lindberg film "Anita" (recently released on DVD). It is also somewhat similar to the seminal Swedish sex film "I Am Curious Yellow", but without the tedious political diatribes (that movie showed that sex-hungry audiences in the 1960's would apparently watch ANYTHING to see some skin). The lead Solveig Anderson, however, is much more in the class of Christina Lindberg (with whom she starred in several later movies) than the downright homely female star of "I Am Curious Yellow". Of course, unlike any of the other films mentioned, this film was obviously aimed much more at a home-country Swedish audience than an international one. In fact, the plot about a teenage girl who scandalizes her entire small-town by having sex with various men sometimes for money(or a candy bar)probably would have perplexed the international audience who pretty much believed at the time that ALL young Swedish women were like this. The girl is put on trial for exposing herself to a homeless man and at said trial the hypocrisy of town is revealed since some of the much more respectable local men were also dipping their wicks in the the willing Eva. (I have no idea why she's referred to as a "half virgin" in the to the title, since she's clearly not even half virginal).
Sex-wise this is not a particularly strong movie, but personally I prefer these genuinely pretty Swedish girls-next-door types like Anderson or Lindberg to the Times Square skanks that were in most American sex films of that era, and certainly to the silicone-enhanced brides of Frankenstein you generally find in sex movies today. Of course, it's best not to watch a movie like this for the relatively tame sex scenes, but rather as a nostalgic window into a different time or different culture (and these local films often reveal more about a particular culture than the high-brow "art" films they release to the world). Obviously, this isn't Bergman, but it seems interesting (and would probably be even more so if they ever release it with English subtitles and I know what the hell anyone is saying).