Review by sannichi

A very strong, sentimental, epic, Swedish film I really recommend everyone to see, as long as - and this is vital - you reflect upon what it is you're being fed. A massive amount of prefab truths are pushed at you and they are more or less finely hidden in golden wrapping, ie the music, tear jerking dialogs and circumstances, not to mention in themselves powerful medias such as disability, mobbing, abuse of women and godless religious abuse.

I'm a rather sensitive person and is easily affected by the tricks even though I realize them as blunt. One shouldn't declare others' true emotions invalid, and there are films with much worse content morally out there. The big problem lies not within the acting, directing or general aesthetics, but within the main murmur within the audience during the screening: "this is what I've always thought" and such.

Pay attention, please. Beware that nowhere in this mess is there a human being, only characters. The abuser, the hero, the mobster, the victim, the silenced, the depraved, the Samaritan and so on. My experience of reality looks very different. Is this "what you've always thought" about people? That they're dividable in categories?

And the ending is somewhat beautiful but never in human history has something like it occurred and nowhere will it, unless a strong force of mass psychology is added. "I couldn't have said it better myself". Yes you could.

Dangerous stuff, indeed.