KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

TheLittleSongbird It took me a while to get round to watching 'Elvira Madigan', having heard a lot of good things about it, such as the visual look, the music, the emotion and Pia Degermark, while also hearing it being dismissed for sentimentality, for having little story and with not enough insight on illicit sex relationships.Found 'Elvira Madigan' to be a truly beautiful film and that all the good and most striking assets mentioned are correct. There are some great cinematic love stories, the likes of 'Casablanca', 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Gone With the Wind' and 'The Remains of the Day' being classic examples . And classical music (Mozart being one of my favourite composers, while appreciating highly Vivaldi) is hugely special and important to me Always has been from a very early age, coming from a musical family and being raised on it, and helped me try and block the bullying endured in school for looking, sounding and acting "different and against the norm". 'Elvira Madigan' may not quite be one of the greatest cinematic love stories, but it is to me one of the most underrated. It also should be better known beyond having one of film's most famous uses of classical music, that became very closely associated with the film and still is. It may be slow, slight and sentimental for some, others will be deeply moved and entranced. As one can figure, belong in the latter category myself.The story admittedly is a slight one, but not so in a way that badly handicaps the film. The atmosphere and emotion is what carries it along, and on that front 'Elvira Madigan' scores the highest of marks. Love stories from any film from the 60s were never this tender, haunting or delicate. A lot of the film is achingly moving and likely to have one reaching for the tissues, like the fight and apology sequence and of course the heart-wrenching tragedy.Visually, 'Elvira Madigan' looks ravishing. Loved that it went for a sumptuous pastel look rather than the monochrome one like one would think the film would go for reading the plot line. That way it makes the viewer appreciate the Swedish countryside at its most delightfully picturesque on film and gives Degermark's photogenic beauty an appealing innocence that makes the story and its outcome all the more painful emotionally.Mozart's 2nd movement from his twenty first Piano Concerto is one of film's most famous utilisations of classical music and also one of the most effective. For me the best use of Mozart outside of 'Amadeus' too. It is a divine piece and fits just as much with the atmosphere and the emotion, maybe it could have been used a little less than it was but there is no denying that the impact is there. Performances are good too, with Degermark being especially captivating.Overall, beautiful film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Lina Westman I'm not usually a fan of these pure-love-conquers-all type of films, but I really liked Widebergs "Elvira Madigan". It's funny to see how many Americans think of it as "slow" and "boring" because there are so few dialogs and you already know the end. Old Scandinavian movies kind of follows their own way of building a story, nowadays they follow the American style more, which isn't bad either, just different. But even though a movie is made in a different way than you are used to, it might be worth giving it a chance. "Elvira Madigan" needs to be read between the lines, you have to notice all the details to see the beauty and the complexity of the story, and since it's so "slow" you get a lot of time to do that. The dialogs are very few, but they all mean something. I especially liked when Sixten talked to his friend about that the world could be just one straw (if that's the right word?) of grass and that love is when you want to See the world from your lovers eyes. Often when you try to explain love, all your words become clichés but in this film it's like you have never heard about love before. But actually I didn't really notice how good I thought this film was until the ending, when the beautiful picture of Hedvig capturing a butterfly froze to the sound of the gunshot. Thanks to that frozen image, the beauty became immortal. It wouldn't have been the same if you could actually see them dying. It left a nice, warm feeling in my chest that I think will stay for long.

zinkster Lots of dreamy soft-focus shots of the two principals wandering across landscapes and through towns, gazing at each other lovingly, oblivious to the fact that their love can go nowhere. In the end, they are faced with only the option of suicide, and the soldier shoots first Elvira then himself; I recall that the spot of blood on her blouse was touchingly filmed as a coda to their doomed affair. Frankly, this film would have been relegated to the curiosity pile long ago and forgotten, except for the fact that the soundtrack featured the highly talented pianist Geza Anda playing, repeatedly, the languid and lovely second Andante movement of Mozart's achingly beautiful piano concerto in C, K467. The soundtrack made such a huge impression that generations of movie-goers who had never heard Mozart before may have been inspired to give him a listen -- so much so that Deutsche Grammaphon, the producer of the album, named the Mozart K467 concerto the "Elvira Madigan" concerto, and so it has been informally known ever since to much of the public.

MikeF-6 Sorry, I have to include a Spoiler because the ending is one thing I really hated about this filmI found Elvira Madigan to be very distasteful. I saw it during its first U.S. release in - what? - 1968 or '69. Instead of being beautiful and romantic, I found it unpleasant. I know that now it is a cliché to show vomiting in movies, but this had the first explicit upchucking I had ever seen on the screen. Also, I never understood what was so `romantic' about a man killing his lover and himself. The last thing I have against this film is its now permanent attachment to the concerto that is used on its soundtrack. It is typical to find this citation: Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major ("Elvira Madigan") K. 467. Most classical musical nicknames were appended after the work's appearance and without the composer's knowledge or permission, but this is the only one I know of that didn't became standard until 200 years after composition. It is absurd that this little remembered movie should have its fame extended by an undeserved attachment to a musical masterpiece.