Svinalängorna

I recently saw this at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Noted actress Pernilla August makes her feature film directorial debut and for her first time out gets Sweden's official entry to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film consideration. Leena (Noomi Pace) is the daughter of Finnish immigrants to Sweden whose abusive and alcoholic father is long dead and her mother with whom she has an estranged relationship is in the hospital and dying. A series of flashbacks tell the story. Ville Virtanen is Leena's hard drinking, hard living father Kimmo. Outi Mäenpää is Leena's long suffering mother Aili who, despite all she put up with in her marriage, carries a life long love and sympathy for her husband. With Tehilla Blad is Leena as a child and Pace's real life husband Ola Rapace as Lenna's husband Johan. Based on the Susanna Alakoski novel with screenplay by August with Lolita Ray. Cinematography by Erik Molberg Hansen. This is a great cast and features great directing, cinematography, a good script and story and sound. It's a dark subject with spousal and alcohol abuse but not presented too darkly but very believably. I would give this an 8.5 out of 10 and recommend it.

this film blew my mind. it tells the story of a woman with a very painful past and she gets a chance to confront her past and not allow it to become a part of her future. in an interview in Italy when she was discussing the girl with the dragon tattoo with director Neils Arden oplev she explained that its not good to feel sorry for your self and that we need should take all the bad things if any in our lives and take them out on someone else instead of letting it stay and grow inside. i agree and thats what we get to see in this film is a woman who gets to express her pain and confront her abusive mother who is dying in the hospital. i highly recommend this film. Also i have also read a few comments on whether or not Hollywood will change noomi rapace as a person. i don't think so because she seems very content with who she is and where she wants to take the direction of her career.

This is a drama that almost sets you in a mode of physical pain throughout the whole film session. The director Pernilla August lets the viewer become a part of the private lives of the people you get to know in this film in a way that's almost embarrassing. You just stand there, watching their lives falling into pieces while the alcohol takes over the control and you cry, not by sentimentality but a painful cry by pity and compassion. You are not even able to hate the dreadful father (Ville Virtanen) and the mother (Outi Mäenpää) letting this happen to her children whom she loves.

Seeing these things through the grown up woman Leena (Noomi Rapace) gives you the distance that you need to be able to suffer this emotional torture. She has hidden these experiences deep inside of her, but a phone call from her dying mother confronts her with her dark past.

The young Leena is played by Tehilla Blad and she carries this film with the same depth and intensity as her elder alter ego Noomi Rapace does. Rapace is the star actress in this film but Blad's performance in this film is the biggest remaining impression I carry with me when I leave the theater. ALL the actors make an outstanding work. The acting in Beyond goes beyond many good films and there is no weak link, not even the young children. The continuity between the girl Leena and the women Leena is exceptional. Not primarily for their look but for their expression and how you can read their feelings and thoughts in their faces.

Can only admire Noomi Rapace's acting and that of the cast in this tragic and sad story. It's not going to make anyone feel uplifted for the experience of watching this film but it will certainly make an impact.

Not a film I'd want to see twice though.

Films about mother/daughter relationships have always been popular with audiences as they enable a close assessment of ideas,opinions and sentiments with which most mothers and their daughters can be identified.As a film which belongs to "mother/daughter relationship" genre,Svinalängorna/ Beyond shows how the lives of a mother and her daughter are destroyed when alcohol wreaks havoc on their close-knit family.The audiences get to see how in a family with recurring scenes of husband/wife conflict, children suffer enormously as their childhood is annihilated.This film is based on a book written by author Susanna Alakoski who also tackles the plight of ordinary Finnish people in Sweden.Young Swedish actress Tehilla Blad is a joy to watch as the success of the entire film rests on her acting talent.Pernilla August,one of Swedish cinema's leading actresses makes her feature film début with this film which she jointly wrote with Lolita Ray.The influence of her mentor Swedish cinema maestro Ingmar Bergman can easily be discerned in all family scenes wherein efforts have been made to allow victims to express their opinions clear and loud.