Brottslig drift

Nathan and Richard are two young, jewish, intellectual and homosexual men. They make a living of small-time thefts, until the day they get the idea of kidnapping and murdering a young boy. The murder is discovered and the police can pin the crime onto the two men. The trial that follows quickly becomes international news. The film is based on a true story which took place in the United States in the 20's.

Comment:
Two upper-class, intellectual, jewish gays commit a messy murder of a young boy. Is this a tall story taken from ''Der Stürmer'', the Hitler paper of the 30's? No, Tom Kalin's Swoon is based on a true story that took place in the 20's, in the United States of gangsters.
Richard (Daniel Schlachet) and Nathan (Craig Chester) have a chaotic homosexual relationship and invest all their energy in cultivating their quasi-depraved status as outsiders. Until they get a normal bourgeois career going, they want to make a living through crime. But they only manage to just scrape along on ridiculous small-time thefts. Until the day they get the idea of kidnapping a boy and asking for a big ransom.
There's no doubt about who the bad guys are. But the film is definitely no homophobic outcry. Instead it exposes the hypocrisy and double-standards of American society. One example is when the judge asks women and journalists to leave the courtroom since homosexual activity will be treated in great, nearly pornographic detail.
Swoon proves that a film with artistic ambitions can be produced with a small budget and limited time. At first it may seem affected, both as regards form and dialogue. But this turns out to be a poignant method of portraying the two killer's distorted perception of reality and their artificial lives. As the film goes on the style becomes more straightforward and documentary; a very sucessful way of showing how the sordid and brutal reality takes over the bizarre game.
Göran Linderoth

Orig. titel
Swoon: Medverkande
Daniel Schlachet, Craig Chester: Producent
Christine Vachon, Tom Kalin: Manus
Tom Kalin: Foto
Ellen Kuras: Musik
James Bennett: Talat språk
English