Stockholm Film Festival

Vilgot Sjöman is, amongst other things, a great portrayer of Stockholm. He proved that in his Curiousfilms. In En handful I kärlek Sjöman, as he mentioned in an interview, wanted to ''paint'' a picture of Stockholm at the turn of the century with bold and soft colours, the old Stockholm the way one thought it looked like - using pieces of the city that were still left.
Sjöman has successfully portrayed his home town prior to 1909, the year of the big strikes. The tough critic, Jurgen Schildt, says in the newspaper Aftonbladet that the film is ''a skilled and almost tangible reconstruction of Stockholm at the turn of the century, with its contrasting financial conditions: a city of herring filled barrels, old police helmets, poor neighbourhoods, dirty fists and Sunday bow ties.''
En handfull kärlek(''A Handful of Love'') is a story of not only class struggle, but also the struggle between the sexes. The two are intertwined in a way that is uniquely ''sjömanesque''. The class struggle takes place in bed as much as it does on the street or at the negotiating table. The grocery store owner, played by Ernst Hugo Järegård, who always gets to play the bad crook, gets the maid Hjördis (Anita Ekström) pregnant. She then finds herself stuck between the beaugeois and
the working class, desperately wanting to I ive the Iife of a petty beaugeois mother and wife. The maids revolutionary roommate, played by Gösta Bredefeldt, is also quite revolutionary in bed and takes revenge by starting a relationship with a woman from the upper class. Sexuality mixes itself with politics, as it do often does in Sjömans films. Occasional critics claimed the film lens concentrated too much on what was going on in bed. This, however, didn't seem to bother the audience, who turned it into Sjöman's biggest box office hit. Who knows, maybe it after all had something to do with those bed side scenes.
En handfull kärlek is considered the best film, following Sjömans Curious films, the cast is superb. Anita Ekströms portrayal of Hjördis was especially well received, the story's central character. Ernst Hugo Järegård, Ernst Gunther, Per Myrberg and Ingrid Thulin also received positive critique. The role as the nine year old Linus was played by Harald Hamrel!. You've probably heard of him in later films.

Medverkande

Anita Ekberg, Ingrid Thulin, Ernst Hugo Järegård

Producent

Bengt Forslund

Manus

Vilgot Sjöman

Foto

Jörgen Persson

Musik

Bengt Ernryd

Talat språk

Swedish

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Staden 98

Se alla festivalfilmer från 1997