Sweden
After the Rehearsal/Persona, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Barbican - van Hove reconfigures BergmanSaturday, 30 September 2017
Three tall orders must be met in any successful transfer of an Ingmar Bergman text from screen to stage. First, take a company of actors as good as the various ones that the master himself assembled over the years, both in his films and in the... Read more... |
Borg/McEnroe review - Wimbledon face-off is entertaining if incompleteThursday, 21 September 2017
A spate of tennis-themed films gets off to a vivid if incomplete start with Borg/McEnroe, which recreates the run-up to the Wimbledon Men's Final in 1980 with often-thrilling clarity and (as much as is possible for those who will of course recall... Read more... |
Black Lake, BBC Four review – Nordic blanc falls flatSunday, 17 September 2017
What would Saturday nights be without BBC Four’s regular subtitle-fests? Black Lake, their new Swedish import, has nothing in the way of originality to recommend it, but its tale of a haunted ski resort somewhere out towards the Norwegian border may... Read more... |
The 'self-experimenter': Howard Brenton on Strindberg in crisisMonday, 04 September 2017
I wrote The Blinding Light to try to understand the mental and spiritual crisis that August Strindberg suffered in February 1896. Deeply disturbed, plagued by hallucinations, he holed up in various hotel rooms in Paris, most famously in the Hotel... Read more... |
Prom 61 review: Fleming, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Oramo - heliotropic ecstasiesThursday, 31 August 2017
No sunshine without shadows was one possible theme rippling through this diva sandwich of a Prom. Even Richard Strauss's chaste nymph Daphne, achieving longed-for metamorphosis as a tree, finds darkness among the roots; and though Renée "The... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Bergman Week - finding the spirit of the great Swedish filmmakerTuesday, 18 July 2017
In his biography The Magic Lantern, Ingmar Bergman recalls his first encounter with the Swedish island of Fårö, in 1960, when location scouting for his next film, Through A Glass Darkly. A last, desperate bid by the film’s producers to find a... Read more... |
CD: Shitkid - FishSaturday, 20 May 2017
Finally, a new band that lives up to a fine name and great cover art. Then again, Shitkid do a whole lot more than that. Their music sounds like the antithesis of contemporary chart-pop, which is refreshing, but even better, also doesn’t do the... Read more... |
Blu-ray: My Life as a DogFriday, 19 May 2017
My Life as a Dog is a bittersweet coming-of-age yarn which took Sweden and the art cinema circuit by storm on its release in 1985. Anton Glanzelius plays Ingemar, the 12-year-old narrator with a pixie-faced charm; his mother has TB and is exhausted... Read more... |
Midnight Sun finale review - 'terminal silliness, wholesale slaughter'Thursday, 04 May 2017
So here’s the thing: a heavily pregnant woman is hanging by her ankles above a raging torrent. Two teens, one with a broken arm, are stuck down a well. And 15 miners, deep below ground, take refuge from a fire in an emergency chamber, unaware it has... Read more... |
Midnight Sun, Sky AtlanticThursday, 16 March 2017
You can just hear Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, the clever-sick Swedes behind Midnight Sun, cackling as they cooked up the pre-title sequence to the first episode of their new series. A grizzled man in a grey suit wakes up to find himself strapped... Read more... |
CD: Zara Larsson - So GoodThursday, 16 March 2017
For many, music is simply background, blurring tinnily from phones, sense-candy to “Like”, swipe and scroll alongside Pokemon and Snapchat. Music is content, filling digital space in the same way Polyfilla fills dents in walls. Zara Larsson... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Mezzo Anne Sofie von OtterSaturday, 12 November 2016
What's a world-renowned mezzo-soprano in her middle years to do? Slimline of voice, tall and handsome in person with piercing and slightly intimidating blue eyes, Stockholm-born Anne Sofie von Otter isn't likely to sing what is known in the operatic... Read more... |
