Show me Love or Fucking ï¿½mï¿½l

Feb 5, 2004

I’ve been reading about Lukas Moodysson for a few months now. I skipped my chance to see Lilya4-Ever in the theater despite the critical acclaim. I went ahead and grabbed the first thing Netflix had from him. A Swedish film called Fucking Åmål or Show Me Love in it’s American release. It won four Guldbagge Awards (Swedish Oscars who knew?) including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and two Best Actress awards for the two female leads. The story is universal but the movie would not be made in America. At least not without substantial changes. It would certainly never win at the Oscars. I love finding movies like this.

It’s the story of two teenage girls in small-town Sweden (The Åmål from the title). Elin is the beautiful, popular girl that’s frustrated with her life. Agnes is alone with only her parents and a pretend friend to console her. She’s also secretly in love with Elin. It’s a story that could easily fall apart with overblown messages, campy lesbian affection and high school clichés. The movie manages to avoid those problems with a great script, great acting by the two leads and an even, subdued tone that the Swedish godfather of film himself, Ingmar Bergman, would have been proud of. The ending left me a little frustrated with it’s overt symbolism, but the final scene with the chocolate milk pulled it out. In some ways it’s the teenage/high-school version of All the Real Girls. It has that emotional authenticity. The dialogue is sincere. It’s two people fighting against themselves and the world around them to find their way.

One of the reviews, or rather unrepentant worship, talks about the director’s commentary track on the DVD they saw. Sadly the American DVD is lacking in anything useful. You can read excerpts from the commentary in their review.

According to the link above, the actress who plays Agnes, Rebecka Liljeberg, owns a PowerMac 7500/250Mhz G3, a PC, does web design, programming and knows C, Unix, and Linux (self taught). Her favorite game is Zelda 64, she drives a 74 Ford Mustang and embroiders to relax. The info is obviously a few years old. She’s 23 now. Why don’t more women like this live in the US? Feeling: jubilant