Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

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ShogunRua
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Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by ShogunRua »

Having watched the excellent Headhunters recently, I was wondering what other quality modern-day Scandinavian movies (I'm mainly considering Sweden, Norway, and Finland) there are. Aside from Bergman films, I'm completely unfamiliar with work from those countries.

In fact, doing a search (not even restricted to modern years!) for pictures from Sweden, Norway, or Finland yields truly hilarious results;

http://www.criticker.com/?fl&view=prs&f ... 74x163x209

Focus-

Talk about good Scandinavian movies as well as what makes them good.

mattorama12
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by mattorama12 »

Frustrating...I just posted a response and it got lost to the internet. Anyway...

Let the Right One In. It's the story of a boy who befriends a young girl who turns out to be a vampire. They have a truly interesting relationship. What would you do if you fell in love with somebody who taught you how to take care of yourself, but harbored some dark and troubling secrets. It's pretty artsy, but done in a way that (I think) avoids pretentiousness or boring the audience. Some of the scenes stand out as some of the best I've ever seen in the horror genre.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Noomi Rapace's portrayal of the titular character is really amazing. She can be as strong as anybody, yet also be a victim. The story moves quickly and unravels in layers, like most good mysteries. The second and third films in the series are good, but not quite as good as the first.

Finally, I watched Songs from the Second Floor because it got a ton of love on Criticker. It sorely disappointed me, but I'm curious to see why others loved it so much.

MikeH
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by MikeH »

The Hunt and A Royal Affair, both starring Mads Mikkelsen, are two of the best films I've seen in the last couple of years.

I think they're like a lot of European cinema and some contemporary Hollywood stuff in that, if you like things a bit more low key and realistic and less cliched and melodramatic, you should enjoy them.

I also love the Danish political tv drama series called Borgen.

VinegarBob
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by VinegarBob »

Sweden
A Swedish Love Story, Songs From The Second Floor, and You The Living all from Roy Andersson are amazing imo. The latter two are like a mixture of Bergman and Monty Python. Fucking Åmål - a great coming of age story, and Lilya-4-Ever both from Lukas Moodysson are kind of depressing but really good.

Norway
Jens Liens' The Bothersome Man was fantastic - bizarre and really well filmed. O'Horten was enjoyable - a quirky comedy (perhaps a little too self-consciously quirky for some, but I enjoyed it nonetheless). I thought the drama about a suicidal young man Oslo, August 31st was tremendous with a brilliant central performance (it was a remake of the great Louis Malle film The Fire Within, and I thought it was every bit as good).

Denmark
Flickering Lights, Adam's Apples and The Green Butchers, all directed by Anders Thomas Jensen are a lot of fun. He specialises in dark comedies, and also acts - he's great in Susanne Bier's Brodre. Another Bier film - After The Wedding is a great melodrama starring Mads Mikkelsen. Also, most Lars von Trier films are worth watching. My favourite is The Five Obstructions - a collaboration with Jorgen Leth.

Finland
Practically any Aki Kaurismaki film is well worth your time. My favourites are The Match Factory Girl, Drifting Clouds, The Man Without A Past, La Vie de Bohème, and I Hired A Contract Killer. Also there's another quirky feelgood movie called Kamome Diner that I'm fond of - technically it's Japanese, but it's set in Finland.

Iceland
Nói albínói by Dagur Kári I thought was very interesting.

That's all I can think of right now that I've seen. Hope it helps :)
Last edited by VinegarBob on Wed Aug 20, 2014 12:14 am, edited 4 times in total.

ShogunRua
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by ShogunRua »

mattorama12 wrote:The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Noomi Rapace's portrayal of the titular character is really amazing. She can be as strong as anybody, yet also be a victim. The story moves quickly and unravels in layers, like most good mysteries. The second and third films in the series are good, but not quite as good as the first.


Heh, if you click on my link, it's one of exactly 3 Scandinavian movies I have ever seen. In fact, I was so excited about it that I bought it on DVD. Bad decision; turned out to be overrated shit. Here was my review;

"A mediocre murder mystery crossed with lame, boring melodrama. The former amounts to a single deduction then concluded by basic police legwork. (searching databases, going through financial records) The melodrama is too unrealistic to work; not only are the two main characters stilted and dull, they're each a bag of cliches thrown inside multiple plot holes. Pacing is poor; things get very slow in the middle of the picture. Lastly, what kind of idiot rapist puts his dick in the victim's mouth?!"

MikeH wrote:The Hunt and A Royal Affair, both starring Mads Mikkelsen, are two of the best films I've seen in the last couple of years.


The Hunt was already in my Netflix queue, but I have now added A Royal Affair, too. Thanks.

Rumplesink wrote:That's all I can think of right now that I've seen. Hope it helps :)


Indeed it does! Thank you for that insightful and extensive post!

mattorama12
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by mattorama12 »

ShogunRua wrote:Heh, if you click on my link, it's one of exactly 3 Scandinavian movies I have ever seen. In fact, I was so excited about it that I bought it on DVD. Bad decision; turned out to be overrated shit. Here was my review;

"A mediocre murder mystery crossed with lame, boring melodrama. The former amounts to a single deduction then concluded by basic police legwork. (searching databases, going through financial records) The melodrama is too unrealistic to work; not only are the two main characters stilted and dull, they're each a bag of cliches thrown inside multiple plot holes. Pacing is poor; things get very slow in the middle of the picture. Lastly, what kind of idiot rapist puts his dick in the victim's mouth?!"


I'm a bit surprised you didn't like. Anyway, for the record, that link shows what movies I've seen, not what you've seen. It was helpful for combing through my own rankings though!

Suture Self
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by Suture Self »

This is hardly modern, but The Match Factory Girl (1990) is an incredibly bleak Finnish film about revenge that's well worth checking out.

If you want something more campy and stupid, Troll Hunter (2011) is an amusing export from Norway, featuring a great performance by the eponymous lead, as well as some clever special effects.

If you want more bleakness, I'd recommend Oslo, August 31st (2011), a Norwegian film about a man's struggle to maintain sobriety and avoid the temptation of relapse.

Turn Me On, Dammit! (2011) from Norway is a cute little coming of age story about small town blues and sexual frustration.

But what you should really be doing is going through all of Bergman's filmography because no Swedish film director will ever surpass him.

Likewise, if you want movies from Denmark, check out Lars von Trier, because he's definitely Denmark's best filmmaker. For some reason I have a feeling you might like The Boss of it All (2006), possibly because you enjoyed The Office (UK).
Last edited by Suture Self on Wed Aug 20, 2014 1:16 am, edited 3 times in total.

Suture Self
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by Suture Self »

Rumplesink wrote:Sweden
A Swedish Love Story, Songs From The Second Floor, and You The Living all from Roy Andersson are amazing imo. The latter two are like a mixture of Bergman and Monty Python. Fucking Åmål - a great coming of age story, and Lilya-4-Ever both from Lukas Moodysson are kind of depressing but really good.

Norway
Jens Liens' The Bothersome Man was fantastic - bizarre and really well filmed. O'Horten was enjoyable - a quirky comedy (perhaps a little too self-consciously quirky for some, but I enjoyed it nonetheless). I thought the drama about a suicidal young man Oslo, August 31st was tremendous with a brilliant central performance (it was a remake of the great Louis Malle film The Fire Within, and I thought it was every bit as good).

Denmark
Flickering Lights, Adam's Apples and The Green Butchers, all directed by Anders Thomas Jensen are a lot of fun. He specialises in dark comedies, and also acts - he's great in Susanne Bier's Brodre. Another Bier film - After The Wedding is a great melodrama starring Mads Mikkelsen. Also, most Lars von Trier films are worth watching. My favourite is The Five Obstructions - a collaboration with Jorgen Leth.

Finland
Practically any Aki Kaurismaki film is well worth your time. My favourites are The Match Factory Girl, Drifting Clouds, The Man Without A Past, La Vie de Bohème, and I Hired A Contract Killer. Also there's another quirky feelgood movie called Kamome Diner that I'm fond of - technically it's Japanese, but it's set in Finland.

Iceland
Nói albínói by Dagur Kári I thought was very interesting.

That's all I can think of right now that I've seen. Hope it helps :)

Great post! I'll have to check out some of these. I need to explore more of Aki Kaurismaki's filmography cos I quite liked The Match Factory Girl.

ShogunRua
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by ShogunRua »

mattorama12 wrote:
ShogunRua wrote:Heh, if you click on my link, it's one of exactly 3 Scandinavian movies I have ever seen. In fact, I was so excited about it that I bought it on DVD. Bad decision; turned out to be overrated shit. Here was my review;

"A mediocre murder mystery crossed with lame, boring melodrama. The former amounts to a single deduction then concluded by basic police legwork. (searching databases, going through financial records) The melodrama is too unrealistic to work; not only are the two main characters stilted and dull, they're each a bag of cliches thrown inside multiple plot holes. Pacing is poor; things get very slow in the middle of the picture. Lastly, what kind of idiot rapist puts his dick in the victim's mouth?!"


I'm a bit surprised you didn't like. Anyway, for the record, that link shows what movies I've seen, not what you've seen. It was helpful for combing through my own rankings though!


Ah, you're right. I filtered the permalink, but I should have filtered my rankings as it appeared to others first.

Here is my grand total thus far;

Tier 10 Films
Wild Strawberries (1957) 94 (Top 10 all-time)
Headhunters (2011) 77
Tier 3 Films
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2010) 39

FarCryss wrote:But what you should really be doing is going through all of Bergman's filmography because no Swedish film director will ever surpass him.


Very true.

thehynes
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Re: Quality Modern-Day Scandinavian Movies

Post by thehynes »

I quite enjoyed the original Insomnia - much better than the US remake. As someone has said above about Trollhunter, it isnt without a certain charm. Pusher is a great little film (which goes off the rails a bit towards the end in my opinion).

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