ThiefHott Too much of everything

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

sharky_55 This was the debut of a fresh faced Andersson in his mid twentys. Young love lingers in his mind, and he seeks to make this the core of his first feature film. But remarkably for a young debut there is also a tinge of cynicism in the world removed from the two lovebirds. The contrast of the naivety of Par and Annika with the pessimistic adulthood is not afforded a whole lot of diversity or nuance, but it is grim. In the near end where the adults party and the teenagers frolic, Par and Annika are locked in the same wordless embrace as they have been for the majority of the film, completely certain of their feelings. And the adults drink and drink and egg each other on, snidely take jabs at each other's livelihoods and class until it becomes uncomfortable to watch, and ramble drunkenly on their live's woes while no one really listens. There's a suggestion here from Andersson that the youth too will inherit this universal despair, aimlessness and quest for status - that these memories that are ingrained so strongly will become wisps in the wind as they age. It is fair to say that this issue is tackled better in his later, more iconic trilogy, about the trials and tribulations of being human. But what he does nail is the young love. Ann-Sofie Kylin and Rolf Sohlman are appropriately cast, with the right amount of jitteriness - almost as a direct contrast to the now modern preference of casting adults as teenagers. At first it is just glances, glances that are all too familiar. They linger for just a brief moment longer, and the camera does too - a bit of exposed skin, a hint beneath a skirt. They put on a brave front which Andersson betrays by displaying their age (see the bravado of Par's motorcycling riding, only to be humorously overtaken by a ice-cream licking bicycle rider). And when they get closer, their gaze becomes focused on their own insecurities and they can barely move at all. The music, by Staffan Stenström of Atlantic Ocean, is just perfect - in that sweaty, scarlet-infused club, they dance aimlessly, and try to make their glances discreet, all while brushing past significant, hazy figures in the foreground: teenagers know what they want. The bass-line is heavy, and the vocal is practically begging them to come together. And when they don't, because at this age we are rarely direct, they instead communicate via their friends, to try and gleam some insight into how the other feels. Anyone who has been young and in love will remember this little trick, and then some. And when they finally become a couple, they bury their heads into each other's shoulders as if was the last comfort in the world, and conversation is scarce - why talk when their bodies already radiate what their desires are? When Par is beaten up by an older boy, Annika descends into sobs as if thinking he no longer cares for her. Par is horror stricken that he has been shown up, and is no longer worthy of being with her. They make up in that iconic pose on the basketball court, and it is as if it never happened the next day. The see-sawing affections and dramatic bliss of young love. In the beginning Par watches a friend demonstrate his karate moves and poses, shouting in an exaggerated manner as if he was Bruce Lee himself. Women like big bad fighters, he says. If only it turned out to be that simple.

jm10701 En kärlekshistoria (A Love Story) is very much better than anything I have read about it would lead me to expect, and the reason it is so much better is something many who otherwise love the movie criticize it for: that it is NOT just a love story. It is NOT just about the two ethereally innocent and lovely pubescent lovers but about the ugly adults who surround them.If this movie HAD been only about Pär and Annika, it would indeed have been an extraordinary and breathtakingly beautiful love story, and it would have fulfilled the promise of its title and the hopes of very many viewers. But it is a Roy Andersson movie, and even as a fresh-out-of-school twenty-something making his very first feature-length movie, his genius for cutting through illusion to the hardness under the surface of life was fully in evidence.Those who see En kärlekshistoria as being radically different from his recent movies - Songs from the Second Floor and You, The Living - and even from Giliap, made only a few years after En kärlekshistoria, are wearing blinders, choosing to see only the loveliness on its surface and denying the hard reality under and all around the loveliness.ALL of Andersson's movies are like this one. ALL of them are beautiful on one level and devastatingly harsh on another. That is what makes him such an extraordinary movie-maker and his movies so extraordinarily rewarding to watch. Without the hardness under the surface, the beauty on the surface would be empty and of only minimal, temporary value. It might entertain and delight us, but it would not teach us anything about our own world or change us in any way. We would have been made to feel good for a few minutes, but we would not have gotten anything of lasting value from the experience.So the ugly adults HAVE to be in this Love Story, because without them this is nothing but a daydream, a fleeting glimpse into the world of young love, a world that is open to us for only a few months as we are making the astounding transition from childhood, like butterflies emerging unsteadily from our cocoons. That innocent, pure and lovely love is not available to adults, or even to adolescents. Once the cocoon has been sloughed and the wings dried and warmed, the butterfly flies off into its "real" life, and our fragile, emerging innocence is gone forever.The adults in En kärlekshistoria give its love story the context it needs, call our attention to and accentuate its purity and loveliness, and show us how transient that loveliness is. The point (only one of many) Andersson is making (and we do not want to see) is that Pär and Annika are going to turn out to be just like their parents and other relatives: hard, selfish, stupid, abusive, and ugly. They cannot turn out any other way, because - like it or not - that is how we adults are.By showing us what Pär and Annika will be like in just a very few months (the bully who beat up Pär is only slightly older but already like the adults), Andersson gives us an invaluable frame for the lovely snapshot he took of them at their loveliest. That moment, that loveliness, is just as real as and certainly more pleasant to look at than the other, adult reality, but the two sharply contrasting realities need each other to make life tolerable. That contrast is what makes En kärlekshistoria a work of genius and power, much more than just a sweet but vapid story of young love.

runamokprods One of the most realistic portraits of teen-age love I've ever scene. Sensual, sad, and funny. Two terrific lead performances. Very different from Andersson's later, much more surreal films. This is grounded in an amazingly universal reality.The only weak spot is how the secondary stories of the grown ups around them take over the last third of the film. These are interesting and entertaining characters, but it's a bit like 'Romeo and Juliet' suddenly became about Friar Tuck. I get that Andersson is exploring class and politics in Sweden, and the point is to set the kids' innocence against that. But I still feel it's a bit unbalanced.But all that aside, this is a film I love for the way it captures that moment where love becomes something real, and sensuality becomes a part of your life.

von Krolock This is not really a teenager-movie, although some would describe it as such. The main story is about two teenagers falling in love, correct, but that is only the shell. The story inside the shell is the one of the parents with their lost dreams and locked positions. The imagery is truly beautiful(the famous Serojoska-scene stands out) and the film also features Björn Isfält`s first venture into composing for the movies. Den Vackre and The Bertil Theme are particularly beautiful. Sadly this film, Roy Anderssons in my opinion finest one, is not available on video.