S.P.U.N.G

The picture in Spung is very raw, and almost similar as dogma films. At the time it was produced, the acting crew was quite unknown. The content in Spung is timeless, because it does not follow a certain story. It reflects human relations, but apart from other relation dramas it is done in a truly honest and poetic way, sometimes surrealistic. The clipping is lovely, playful and amazing. The soundtrack is great, with mostly unsigned music and always varying, depending on the episode's theme. Spung is the Swedish answer to "six feet under" concerning the manuscript, and concerning the picture Spung is not far from "requiem for a dream" - even though Spung was made first! Certanley does Spung not touch all types om people (I did write it's honest), rather a minority such as people who interests themselves of humanity and who prefer living in a reality and not in a plastic world. I wish to see Spung on DVD so that people outside Sweden can enjoy this masterpiece too.

Swedish "public service"-TV keeps feeding us with mostly, pure junk, of which this series is another fine example. People that probably were teenagers a long time ago try to make their impression of what is like to be one today, and miss the mark completely. The show feels unrealistic, as a youngster I do not recognize myself at all here. To add to the strived after-realism, it is filmed in very grainy digital video and the lightning is virtually non-existant. Which I find only irritating, when its probably intended to be "cool".

This show got very bad ratings and missed its intended audience completely. In fact, a majority of the people who actually watched it were senior citizens. But since public service is financed by license money that you have to pay if you own a TV, and not what sells, someone came up with the brilliant idea to make a follow-up to the series: Spung 2.0. Wonderful. Stay away from this one. 1/10.

This is a pretty lame attempt at making some some sort of realistic teen drama. The dialog is between the characters is very amateur-ish. The actors maybe could do well in other tv shows or films or/and with different directors and screenwriters. And the directors of this Tv-show should take a lesson from Lukas Moodyson and use actual teenagers as actors ,not a bunch of twenty-somethings. But well, this show got some media attention mainly for using some segments filmed with Super-8 (?)I just heard that the have made new episodes for the fall to be shown on SVT, and that suprises me.

... How can we go one knowing that this will NEVER be released on DVD?! Well, just barely, to be honest. I discovered SPUNG halfway through the first season and got hooked from there on. The show follows 6 people during school as they party, drink, have sex, and try to figure out why life is so hard to figure out. It deals with real issues and gives a heart and soul to all those thaughts that you yourself had during you're years trying to get on with your life and your choices.

As mentioned before, this show will NEVER be seen on DVD or even VHS or TV (probably) for that matter. Mainly because the series uses such a bizarre amount of music (about 10 songs per episode at least) and the rights to all this would just be too expensive to ever get it released. In fact, the music is also so much of what made SPUNG "SPUNG", it was a real genuine feeling of youth, flowing through every show, but it didn't feel faked like Saved By The Bell (yeah, I know it's an understatement, but I couldn't think of anything else) or Beverly Hills, it was actually genuine. Real people, with real problems, really really depressed, happy, sad, in love, and f***ed up.

The acting was also amazing. Blended with a grainy and unique visual style (influenced perhaps by a dogmatic feel) the series uses a lot of coulor and high contrast imagery which really made it stand out from the rest of SVT's crappy shows.

So yada yada yada, you will probably never get to see this :(

The acting may seem improvised at times, but that only contributes to the realistic feeling of teenagers having teenage conversations. I saw the show as I was in the exactly same time of life as the characters and it was frightening how much their reality resembled my own. We were always about five people watching it and the TV screen felt like a mirror every time. Amazing I say.