La chorale du bonheur

I really loved this movie and so did the audience that I saw it with in Los Angeles. After the film, lots of people were crying and saying how much the film had affected them. I can see why it was such a huge hit in its homeland, Sweden. The film is masterfully directed and each character brilliantly drawn so that by the end you really know these people and care about them. The music is very natural and the main song in the film quite heartbreaking but inspiring. Would definitely recommend this film for everyone to see - even people who don't normally go to subtitled films. Definitely deserved the Oscar Nomination because of the profound themes of the film reflected without pretension in a small-town community with everyday people. It is a film that unites us in this divided world and shows us the potential of the human spirit. A MUST SEE!

First I was caught totally off guard by the film's initial lyricism and then I became totally enchanted with the unfolding story and engrossed with the brilliant directing. The characters were all fully developed, not bigger-than-life but just like the people we live among anywhere we are in the world, in Sweden, in Turkey or in America, all completely believable human beings with foibles and nobility. Hollywood could learn so much from this beautiful film. It shows that there is no need to go into every little detail behind every action to bring out the whole theme clear and bright, and that shows the brilliance of the director! Hearfelt thanks to Kay Pollak and the wonderful cast for this superb treat!!

It's interesting, actually odd I think, to see this movie classified here as Comedy first, then Drama. While there are a few comedic moments – as always in real life – most of this story centers upon the drama surrounding the psycho-social awakening of the central protagonist, Daniel Dareus (Michael Nyqvist), a violin maestro and concert conductor of international standing.

The awakening specifically concerns Daniel's search for love, something he's been unable to achieve since his teens, when his mother died tragically as he watched – an episode that occurs in the first series of establishing scenes and voice-over. Hence, from the get-go, we know that Daniel is a fragile and emotionally disturbed genius who really needs help.

Humans have a penchant for returning to the past for answers – a typical and often quite sensible approach to unresolved psychological problems, as most know. Daniel is no different: he goes back to his home village where he was cruelly bullied when very young, memories of which still haunt him.

There, he buys his old school house: long left abandoned, unused, dilapidated and a metaphor for his own emotional state. Significantly, he begins the process of repairing the building and, tentatively at first, also reaching out to the local people, all of whom are wondering what brought such a famous personage to such a nondescript place that seems to be encased in snow and ice for most of the year. In particular, the local church pastor asks him to help out the local choir.

Initially demurring because he's shy of human contact, Daniel eventually agrees after meeting the woman who manages a local post office/convenience store, Lena (Frida Hallgren) and with whom he gradually builds a romantic relationship, a crucial step in his self-rehabilitation. Along that way, moreover, Daniel also gets to know the various members of the choir and, to a large extent, the nature of their own insecurities, fears, troubles and doubts.

Hence, there are various sub-plots concerning those choir members, all of whom provide different degrees of support and which assists Daniel with his now obsessive need to create a truly cohesive choir that can sing in absolute tonal harmony. Why? Because, not only is music the first and most basic language of humanity, it is – in Daniel's view – the only way to truly and effectively communicate with another human at a 'spiritual' level.

The latter might be a bit of a stretch for some viewers, but it is illustrated in perhaps one of the most original choir recitals you'll ever see – anywhere – when the whole choir travels to a contest in Austria to compete internationally. Only the hardest of hearts within the worst cynics will shrug and walk away from that and Daniel's achievement.

There are wonderful touches of irony and pathos when we learn about all the choir members as they, with Daniel's help, discover their new strengths and knowledge about each other. As always, some lose, some win. But, that's life, no? Which raises a fundamental issue: at the end, is Daniel a winner or loser? You can judge when you see this movie. All I can say is that it is fitting, win or lose.

The production, from Denmark and Sweden, is top rate. The frozen north is captured beautifully. The acting is simply outstanding with the only familiar face for me being Nyqvist (and I've seen many Danish/Swedish films – but not enough as yet, obviously); the cast, when singing together, looked as though they truly enjoyed their work. And the sound track and singing are just perfect, for me.

Nominated for Best Foreign Film for 2005, it lost out to a Spanish entry, The Sea Inside, a true-life biopic that I've seen and liked. From my perspective, however, this one is much better.

Give it eight out of ten. Recommended for all.

February 27, 2012.

Kay Pollak's 2004 heart-warmer Så som i himmelen/ As it is in Heaven contains every stereotype of Swedish humanity and inhumanity yet manages to be a crowd-pleaser. It contains plenty of ammunition for cynical critics, continuity error-spotters and for saccharine-debunkers, yet manages to depict the colours of life in a small community evocatively. The film also runs the gamut of proverbial messages about 'finding one's own voice' and 'just doing it despite one's fear', without completely removing the lump from the throats of the cynics.

Its success as a crowd pleaser comes from two facts. Firstly, small films about strangers bringing new life to rural Christian communities provide plenty of scope for the exposure of hypocrisy while at the same time allowing repressed characters to break out of their hairshirts. The same year and with a similarly Swedish breeze, The Queen of Sheba's Pearls did it, and Babette's Feast also comes to mind. Secondly, any film about small communities taking on the whole wide world will strike a human chord in our increasingly individual/self- focused and impersonalized world. This film's structural similarity with the likes of The Full Monty, Brassed Off, Calendar Girls and On a Clear Day shows its indebtedness to the formula. But it is a formula with life left in it yet, and this seems to be because people need positive- message films that evoke a sense of community almost in spite of themselves.

The stranger is burned-out maestro Daniel Daréus on a quest for self-rediscovery. The town he visits, or rather revisits, is, unbeknownst to the townsfolk, the place of his childhood. He was bullied mercilessly by classmates here, supposedly because he was a sensitive musician without aspiration to drive a truck. Here, he takes the job of cantor/choirmaster, despite the usual suspicions of artists and outsiders. The place is, of course, populated by a wide range of recognizable types whose character arcs can be predicted: the broken-hearted, fair-haired girl so beautiful she nearly glows; the cellphone-ringing local businessman; the woman whose beauty is lost amidst domestic abuse; the steely pastor and his less austere wife, who at first seem right out of Ingmar Bergman. Also present: jealous, uptight spinster (Siv) (check); geriatric whose soul still sings (check); elderly couple who may have repressed desires for each other since kindergarten (check); obese person whose function is to point out we should not laugh and say 'fatty' (check); intellectually handicapped boy who proves able to sing a good 'A' (check).

Pollak's film is not all warm fuzzies, however. It diverts from the 'let's put on a show despite setbacks and moral opposition' sub-genre. It contains violence and an ending that might well be a metaphor for dying after achieving creative nirvana. The violence of the film is mostly a function of male anger and repression, but in never delves deeply into why the school bully who grows up into a wife beater is like this. Similarly, the small town Pastor so closely adheres to the moralistic, black-wearing super-Protestant stereotype, that his secret indulgence in girlie magazines is hardly surprising. His repressions and hypocrisies are just there, dangling unrelated to psychological reality. Perhaps the unexplained photograph of a young boy, a lost son perhaps, glimpsed once over his shoulder, holds the secret.

Perhaps these holes are functions of the editing, like several inconsistencies and continuity glitches that can be spotted, such as Siv's unexplained reappearance in the choir (twice) after moralistic outbursts. In fact none of the hitches in the film last very long and all seem resolved within a scene. Apart from in some awkward love scenes, the film's 127 minutes seldom drag, but there is a feeling that things may have been left on the cutting room floor.

The film remains solid three-star-fare despite the holes that can be picked in it. This is simply because in a world of technology-focused flicks and materialistic self-seeking, any glimpse of human community is, deep down, welcome for anyone, even the cynical.

The line, of course, is from the Lord's Prayer - "Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven". Sweden, especially its far north, is not my idea of heaven -30 degree C winter temperatures are a little on the low side for me, but the good folk who live there no doubt think they are in God's own country.

The storyline here is a familiar one. Acclaimed international musician Daniel suffers health breakdown in mid-career, goes back to the little village in northern Sweden where he was born. Persuaded by the local pastor to help out with the church choir, he turns some unlikely talent into a class act, and they enter a contest held in Innsbruck Austria. There are echoes (sorry) of the band players of "Brassed Off" the models of "Calendar Girls" and the dancers of "the Full Monty". But of course he causes plenty of emotional upheaval as some of the more downtrodden villagers realise their worth and revolt against their oppressors. He faces hostile husbands and an increasingly dubious pastor, but nothing except death is going to stop him.

Despite the somewhat corny story, we get to know and like many of the characters, who come across as people rather than caricatures despite many of them being recognisable "types'. I did wonder about the wife-beater being unpunished for so long – Sweden is one country in the world where such violence is pretty strongly discouraged (he was also a bit young to be one of the bullies of Daniel's youth) and the puritanical pastor with a secret passion for girlie magazines was a bit of a stereotype, but marvellously realised by Niklas Falk.

Michael Nyqvist is simply wonderful as Daniel, the frail but driven musician, and there's some nice music as well. I was rapt for the whole two hours. The ending is what you make of it, I guess, but it's not spoiling it to say Daniel achieves what he set out to do.