My father, who has never been a fan of domestic cinema, always used to keep a skeptic and indifferent moaning attitude towards the Swedish films of this sort when aired on telly. When this particular gem was shown, however, during one of its many awkwardly staged sceneries, the sofa began to shake. I was something like twelve years old, and I grasped nada of this flick but thinking it was high intellectual stuff, I turned to my dad wondering what was happening. It appeared he was laughing so hard he could barely make a sound. I learned something by this, realizing that a highly pitched intellectual tone in a film not necessarily means it has qualities, nor artistically nor as a commentary of the human condition. I realized fully the meaning of pretentiousness. Thus was the state of Swedish films in the late 1970s, technically inadequate (maybe audible sound and intelligible dialog were deemed to prosaic to be considered in serious film-making), far-fetched Freudinism interpreted individually be those granted Swedish governmental funding, and utterly unwatchable today. No wonder Ingmar Bergman our escaped country in 1976.
Watch it and You realize what the summary of this comment refers to...
