This page includes things that unless you've already seen the film will ruin your little cinematic experience. So if you haven't seen the film go back! I'm not going to analysis this film to bits, i don't have the page space to do that, so instead i'm going to rant about issues and things about and from the film which i thought about alot and which caught my attention or hit a spot with me.
One of the first things that strikes you about the format of this film is that it's done in a slight documentry style, alot of the camera angles give the impression that you are watching the event as a bystander and is constantly zooming in and out of focus.
The setting of the film is also very important, a small town were socialogical changes take a while to reach it and take affect. Elin has an on going battle throughout the film to be different from everyone else, being in a small town helps to fuel this, because she is stuck in such a conformist society. Those who don't fit the social norms in Amal are excluded, for example, Victoria is disabled and is excluded from social circles because of that. This leads us onto the charcters 'motivations': Agnes is quite simply a non-conformist. She is secure and quite open about who she is and although at times she isn't happy with it she accepts who she is. Elin is a little more complex, even though she's popular, from the start she's trying to be different, the 'wildchild' image she portrays is, one would presume, the latest attempt to find her sense of individualism. This makes you wonder 'is Elins relationship with Agnes nothing more than a new attempt to try and be different?' Agnes already has a high status as an individualist and non-conformist, so Elin could be simply trying to 'cash in' on this. Jessicas reaction to Agnes being a lesbian gives an indication that the town they live in is still rather homophobic, so by having a relationship with Agnes, Elin is able to shock her friends more by doing this rather than just being friends with Agnes.
However we assume (and hope) that this is not the case because of the apparent 'turmoil' that Elin goes through, her insecurity about her feelings for Agnes and her knee-jerk reaction relationship with Johan. Elins dream, which is probably the most remembered scene from the film, and most used for advertising probably because of it's 'Aaww' factor, also indicates that Elin does have true feelings for Agnes.
My sister has a great interest in 'alternative therapies' etc. and is a self taught dream analyist, she has analyised dreams for myself and numerous friends and she is often quite scarilly right. Anyways she gave me a quick analysis of Elins dream here's her preliminary analysis:
' This dream is basically the way in which Elin wants people to react if her and Agnes had a relationship. Their in a cafeteria, Elin is sitting with her mates and no-one says or does anything, as Agnes gets closer the noise level reduces and turns to silence. Elin wants Agnes but at the same time she fears what the reaction of her friends will be, but again this dream is what she would ideally like to happen, that no-one notices or cares.'
Moving onto the issues of sterotyping, i did it with 'Bound' so i have to do it here, i have no idea about swedish fashion (European fashion differs from US and UK fashions) but in comparison to what we'd consider sterotypical dressing it's much more subtle in this film. Agnes doesn't dress butch, but rather has an individualistic style, Elins dress sense varies, at time she looks like a tart and other she's just in baggy clothing, so she doesn't dress like your typical femme either. With the scenes were Agnes and Elin are out on the bridge, you think that Agnes is dressed butch and Elin femme, but when you think about it Elin has just come from a party and doesn't have a coat. We know it's cold because they make references to it being cold in the scenes, so the fact that Agnes is wearing a jacket only seems butch supperficially, really she's being a sensible kiddywink.
Many other issues about teenage life arise in this film, peer presure, children-parents relationships, friendship and as always with teen movies growing up. One of the best of these is when Agnes is talking to her father. He says that he understand that being new in a town is hard and it's difficult to makes friends initially blah blah blah and the Agnes blurts out 'But we've been here for 2 years!'
The issue of friendship is a very important one in this film, Agnes and Victorias friendship is beautifully summed up by Agnes at her birthday party. 'We're only friends because we have no-one else' is such a true statement, people be-friend each other because they don't want to be alone. Alot of Elins turmoil over her feelings for Agnes is caused by the peer presure and expectations from her friends, she lies to Jessica about where she was the previous night and who she was with because she knows Jessica won't approve and would probably freak out if she knew.
I believe i have talked about this enough, plus i need room on this page to put in some piccies. I have touched on some issues that surround this film, it does cover alot because it mixes genres, it isn't just a love story.
If i could i would only change one aspect of this film: when Agnes and Elin are in the toilet together and in effect get together there is no physical contact which helps to enforce this. When you admit you love someone and they feel the same way in response you hug or kiss or something, but they don't do anything in the film and they really should! That's my only major complaint about this film
Finally i do have various pictures which are too large in disk space to put on the pages, they'd take aaggeess to load up if i did, some of these pics include a comic strip taken from 'Mad'. It's a bit of a take on the film and it's in swedish. although i've been trying to get it translated, also i have a copy of the script. So if you want any more pics or the script just email me, click on the send email animation and i'll send it to you. |
