Friday, September 15, 2006

Falkenberg Farewell (Farväl Falkenberg)

This film follows a collection of childhood friends, now adults, spending the summer in their hometown of Falkenberg, a sleepy little Swedish town on the sea. All of them seem fairly bored by life in a town with nothing to do, but none of them possess the drive to change anything. The thought of moving to the city is not interesting at best, earth-shattering at worst, because they can't or won't imagine a life without their friends, and the nostalgia of their childhood is difficult to overcome. One of the friends' solution to preserving that feeling of the perfect summer day leads to an unexpected decision.

Falkenberg Farewell is a very quiet, introspective film where nothing really happens until about 3/4 of the way through. It is filled with tight handheld shots, giving it an intimate, personal feel. The dialog almost feels improvised, like you're voyeuristically observing people in real life. The images played with the film's credits suggest that the one event in the film does shake the characters out of their ennui. It's not a bad film, although of festival films I've seen that are more observational in nature, I tend to prefer Ana and the Others or Cafe Lumiere a little more.

1 comments:

I spent a week in Falkenberg, back in the summer of 1993, when O-ringen was held there. Ah, glory days.

My experiences at the Toronto International Film Festival. Note this blog is not affiliated with the Toronto International Film Festival Group or the festival itself.
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