‘Undervalued and underseen, Mai Zetterling’s directorial work explodes like a firecracker. Even today, more than 50 years since her most fertile period, the films remain fresh in tone, content and form. Filled with transgressive eroticism, they arouse controversy and transcend conventional narrative structures. More often than not, they centre on characters trying to find their place in life – just as Zetterling was when she made them.
‘While still in her teens, she rose to prominence as an actor in her native Sweden, breaking through in Alf Sjöberg’s startling Torment (1944), written by a young Ingmar Bergman. The film’s success led her to the UK, where she played the eponymous immigrant in Basil Dearden’s excellent wartime drama Frieda (1947). A contract with the Rank Organisation followed, but sadly good roles didn’t: she was typecast as a refugee, and then as a sex symbol. A trip to Hollywood for the amusing Danny Kaye vehicle Knock on Wood (1954) paved the way for stardom, but Zetterling walked away, uncomfortable in the spotlight and unsatisfied with the quality of the female parts on offer.
‘Given such a predicament, it’s unsurprising that Zetterling’s own films show a concern for the role of women in contemporary society – something which didn’t always sit well with male critics. Time and again, reviewers refer to her films as ‘cold’ – perhaps because they engage the mind more than the heart, or perhaps because their explicit sexuality and pessimistic attitude towards marriage simply don’t fit with conventional notions of femininity. But even without her former image as Britain’s homely ‘Swede-heart’, Zetterling’s directorial work would feel brazen, bold and anarchic.
‘After directing 4 short documentaries for the BBC, Zetterling made a BAFTA-nominated, Golden Lion-winning short – The War Game (1963) – before returning to Sweden to make her debut feature: Loving Couples (1964). The film was adapted from a suite of novels by Agnes von Krusenstjerna, whose writing was known for its frank, scandalous sexuality and its detailed portrayal of women’s lives.
‘In condensing the 7-volume series, Zetterling utilised an elaborate flashback structure and personalised the material by adding scenes from her own life (recognisable from their description in All Those Tomorrows, her essential autobiography).
‘Set during the early days of the First World War, the story concerns 3 pregnant women (Gio Petré, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom) who recall their lives and their lovers as they wait to give birth on a maternity ward. Flashbacks reveal their experiences and, as Zetterling put it, their “attitudes to the fundamentals of life: birth and marriage, sexual relations, human feelings, freedom”. In telling these women’s stories, Zetterling highlights the misogyny of the men that surround them.
‘Nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the film was condemned for its sexual (and homosexual) content – even its poster was banned. Part of the scandal was down to the director’s gender and misguided perceptions about what women should – and shouldn’t – talk about. Indeed, it was often said that Zetterling directed like a man (whatever that means).
‘For her next film, Night Games (1966), Zetterling adapted her own novel of the same name, which explored the decadence and perversity of the upper classes (serving as a wider metaphor for European society as a whole). Perfecting the flashback structure of Loving Couples, Zetterling fluidly interweaves the childhood and adulthood of Jan (Keve Hjelm and Jörgen Lindström) as he returns to his family home in an attempt to overcome the trauma of his incestuous upbringing. Filled with a baroque grotesqueness and an ending that foreshadows Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), it proved so provocative that, once again, even its poster was banned.
‘In 1968 came Zetterling’s 2 best films, made back-to-back – Doctor Glas and The Girls – both of which flopped massively upon release. In the former, adapted from a novel by Hjalmar Söderberg, the eponymous doctor helps a reverend’s estranged wife escape her husband’s lecherous, non-consensual clutches. In The Girls, 3 actresses (played by Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom) go on a theatrical tour with Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and, inspired by their characters, find themselves battling for female liberation in a society dominated by men. Audaciously experimental, the film may be drenched in feminist theory, but it plays like an absurdist comedy.
‘Later, back in England, she was hired to direct the borstal drama Scrubbers (1982), which was originally intended as a quasi-sequel to Alan Clarke’s Scum (1979). Zetterling conducted extensive research, resulting in a compassionate portrayal of the young offenders, and a critical view of the prison system.
‘For her final feature, Amorosa (1986), Zetterling returned to Agnes von Krusenstjerna – this time telling the novelist’s life story rather than adapting her work. The film begins as a fever dream, with von Krusenstjerna being committed to an asylum during the Carnival of Venice. An extended flashback follows, beginning on a joyful note with the Swedish summer and her youthful (same-sex) dalliances, before becoming increasingly unhinged as illness, madness and an abusive husband take hold.
‘Towards the end of her life, Zetterling returned to acting, and there she found more luck with child-friendly material. One of her final roles was as the grandmother in Nicolas Roeg’s terrifyingly good Roald Dahl adaption, The Witches (1990).’ — Alex Barrett
____
Stills
___
Further
Mai Zetterling @ Wikipedia
Mai Zetterling @ IMDb
DVD: Three Films by Mai Zetterling
MZ @ Cinememorial
Mai Zetterling – Nordic Women in Film
Gemini Rising: The Cinema of Mai Zetterling
A Cinema of Obsession: The Life and Work of Mai Zetterling
MZ @ Letterboxd
Directed by Mai Zetterling
Where to begin with Mai Zetterling
Barbara Kruger on “Scrubbers,” Directed By Mai Zetterling
Mai Zetterling and The Girls
Mai Zetterling Takes Us into the Lives and Societal Roles of Three Pregnant Women
EVERY DESIRE: MAI ZETTERLING
____
Extras
Director of the Week: Mai Zetterling
Hommage à MAI ZETTERLING
Harriet Andersson and Mai Zetterling at Cannes 1965
Interview with Jo Batterham on the life and work of Mai Zetterling
____
Monologue (1978)
There used to be a tradition in my country of introducing man says it was. So anonymous to introduce. Actress filmmaker my. Myself as I can Mr August and. Myself is also a philosopher runaway Queen Christina will shock the world. So. The Characters in Search of those. You know I am not on my way to heaven. I’m just the morgue. With a civic registration number. The proof that I. And when I die my number would be put onto another computer. This way I was never. Taking a bird’s eye view of a my. Team which would be named city of light and water. City of. And great. City between. There are many stuck on and the name of many people but for me it is the city of my childhood. The city of a thousand trades. This idiot decide and grow. The city with. The city of no. City. Hidden people. City with a creative on. The city of prosperity. The city would it’s hard because. Here we have problems with. Described. The largest monopolies in the world it’s a simple nodded as they drank chain store for of course. The city of Doc winters and many do me Mom there is a drop in marriages and the divorce rate has risen. The city that provide commute to tickets for dogs. On trains and buses. Stock comp is probably the most law abiding town in Western Europe the city with many laws and restrictions. Reforms protections against almost everything. The city with architecture of seven ten trees and it least seventeen. The god is a silent Lutheran God with little impact on society. Efforts have been made to disestablish to Lutheran Church first junk people or most people who are negative or indifferent to. It. This. Is the city which has been regarded by the world as a model city. Socially and culturally. However there is a system of compulsory military service for men between the ages of eighteen and forty seven. This is a city situated between east and west and who has the highest life expectancy in the world and the highest standard of living in Europe. Everything is organized for the people. Except sleep. Culture is on the top of the list of recreation. The National Theatre. Both pray to God when the two great Bergman’s Ingmar and Ingrid were connected with the star factory it has been called. It has a school with a three year course so I took my carriage in both hands and entered that monumental thing. I used to sit on the steps with my eyes down cost and didn’t think I really belong. But to my great surprise I was accepted at the age of eighteen and already off to one I paid big bucks in Shakespeare and Jane Doe. I was an actress. Our great dramatist all this when I have a lot to say about acting and actress. The art of acting seems to be the easiest of all. As any person can walk tall. Make gestures but of course that person is a self and that is not art. Give a person a role to play and the difficulties begin at for the dawning of the stage that a D.L. little woman she knows she has a charming figure lovely leg and a pair of flirtation. Being is all machines and she uses it. Because certainly nothing to do with talent. If she has words to say. We usually cannot hear them and if we do that is no depth behind the words. And their where about darling one knows she has a lovely voice. She only listens to herself and does not take into account what the author has to say. I should know I was married to two charming darling actresses myself. Poor old Strindberg women always women. He even went as far as thinking that the gang of women intellectuals were after him trying to seduce him being a misfortune is that would have been a feather in the hot foot as they couldn’t seduce him he then thought that they were after the plight he called them a bunch of blue stockings. Man haters. Half women. Self-centered little bitches trying to take over the world he was being persecuted. When its friends called him paranoid he denied it he could never get the fundamentals and tighten that exist between the sexes. Once upon a time he had thought that he could find pieces to a woman but that had turned out to be the worst of all. Strindberg Blue Tower the prison he used to call it he lived here without women and didn’t stop writing about everything stands just as listed now it is amusing on the shelves of the plays. Obsessed with interesting women the beginning and the end the beginning being mother. His first love was his mom. I wanted my love the me he screamed. CD My first wife. Little devil. Them blow a hole in the drawing room a lady in bed I wanted the opposite. Freedom My second wife she attracted me to people I hated her because I loved. My third wife cannibal gave me back my you. Said you want a little child with me you see she didn’t but that is that everything about a woman is a riddle. Everything about women one solution. Pregnant and I must agree with a sometimes strange creatures. Confused. Likely to for. Pointing to a man. We are still out of touch with his word. We are the square pegs in the room. So we are treated with suspicion. Sometimes women have more courage than men. The call to be a woman take great courage. Tell me why do you hate. Women. I’ve never done that. Unfortunately. You know I always thought it was them that give me. A. Woman is a particularly fight I’m intelligent and militias. Once you said that woman was the most perfect thing on a human. To that you had to submission. What professionals do you think a suitable for women white mates. Nurses. Because their children more like. Actress sunset thing at. Queen’s. Of course the female on the specious is more good to see them to me. What are you looking for in life. Love In fact. I’m unhappy. Woman is. Because like nothing. I’m frank and. Show you a bit about a Lonely Planet as I painted it in advance of my time they said like everything else about. Shit green landscape fifty guys and should look for a tree that Sweden or you. Join the even went further I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I maintain that the Swedish nation is a stupid to conceited slavish enemy is an uncouth nation. Something seemed to suggest that we yet there is no region joke that goes there is only one thing wrong with this week. A Swede says Yes look look at a small place we Swedes have made for a look at how do we work and how will we look after each other so beautifully organized so please. Everything is just. In the book where it is middle aged. Why is the rate of suicide. Why has mental illness with. Some green the. Only thing wrong with that to me is that they are. A. Sixteenth century traveler once called stock on a trading village which things which is a city that was true then but now it is a boom town which things it is a big if population has almost tripled in only half a century it is a young city yet very near the heart of the city the old village feeling you’re thinking Oh God. Every part about countries represented here. Every style. Manor house in peasant women. Old in. It is a well known and well loved point stock I’m just called scum. James out knew it well too. He used to come here for ALI MOORE Now trying to free his mind from the demon and the angel that seemed to leave him no peace. But you only moments away into the price that stock one has to pay for the brilliant people Oreo but some of the culmination comes from that very important day for City mid-summer whether singing and dancing all through the night and defecated drinking is was. Now you can read the newspapers midnight without any artificial light. Nobody seemed to know the night is luminous the light has an intensity that has to be seen to be believed even the animals refuse to face. Dance and by the way is a logical God is great for now the animals living relatively open in law to space is not caged in it has been a model to other similar situations and you know what is beautiful but it has. One. Deceived it is cold. Matthew. Godless and create a demolished Saturday night when he was rather tired. I was bald women world there was a mistake to be sure most looked over his own. Soap. Man must command woman must obey all else is computer. Oh yes yes of course it’s only those damn angels I keep on following me about. I’m frightened. I’m frightened. I’m frightened of women will be the death of men. They will never forgive them what they’ve done to them. That think they’re sick women and elephants never forgive women an elephant never forgives. I’m frightened I tell you. I’m frightened of women. Pregnant from the. I’m frightened of the police was going to lock me up sooner or later because of something written law because they think I’m mad. I’m Frank No my success my friend has to say first. I’m frightened you’re here. I’m frightened of myself. I’m frightened of the Dems. Once upon a time there was rather is stupid little man who could think of nothing and. One night he was forced to walk home by. Although the movie for and giving him plenty of light it will still be very frank. When he had done and so he so shadow he thought it was the devil when he dared to go back he saw a little bit of his hair standing on end with fear he thought it was. He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him and when he came home he dropped down. We see. I forgot to tell you about another fear much more. The sweetest nation in nineteen hundred and ten the guarding the military build up. I said it’s a dangerous to make weapons in peace time or so if you have such a big Amish surely must use it. I’ve looked at the past and I can see I’m free. Attack. Neutrality has been a key note allow foreign policy it had no war since eight hundred forty our last prime minister had this to say on the subject. Only no believe in evil was once I know it is that it’s on the to believe that he had to have a military defense it is a month in the world believe him and the minister added to recently it is of course impossible to say exactly how strong our defenses must be but they must be strong enough to make her sister’s worthwhile at least to certain types of attack. Hence this large underground Children dot com which was built as a protection against nuclear attack in deeds time it is used as again a. Bond that one of the best to bad come to single payer to be than those two. To. If war comes there are eleven pages at the back of the telephone book that will tell you what to do. Listen for the alarm signals. Put on the radio for the customs find a safe place and take with you some warm clothes a sleeping bag food and drink for two days. Identity cards etc. Funny really when one knows what just one single megaton bomb can do. Striking the center of the city it would create vast of a station and hundreds of thousands of casualties and radiation would create long term genetic defects and can do it with human. People are feeling alienated in this society a feeling of apathy has crept in small ways in a large beat a machine you say no it doesn’t really matter of the thing. Once. Upon a time one man said to another want the rulers of a country supposed to get rid of unhappiness and make happen is possible for everyone. What do you mean by happiness and unhappiness. Said the other one. When men make wars. When the people mistrust their rule is when there is no love I call that an have been. Why do you think that happened is still exist in a time when we have a good you think there is some lack of understanding between people. While And then he said. Now days we are told how to love and worship our own country. That’s called nationalism and that’s why they go to war against other nations a person is taught to love and take care for themselves. That’s why people are still evil. Now how are you going to change the fate of says said the other one. Was you we must start treating other countries like Iran. We must love and neighbors like ourselves. Did you think that people are going to love it you and call you a little bit of an idea and instead the one. I don’t understand it’s all so simple if you love others they love you if you had to get up the abs that hate getting kids and the ones that kids will get punished Don’t you see it’s all a matter of love. Love is Wall fell. You need more coverage to get married then to go to war. Crean Christina you shocked the world by refusing to get married and again when you have to Katie and you wanted to explore the philosophy of the day you brought the most famous of philosophers to catch up to your cool wet I’m afraid he died. Was it from the draft to rule needs in your castle over to string that killed him. Who moves. This exhibition is called aggression. Scenes aggression. Just like marriage. Marriage being a desperate action of a coward. Let it stop the circulation. Is dicta deny your sister the. Marriage is a vicious circle. Donna kill filters in which we can stop. Them. What do you think of marriage. Marriages with the two people. Madam. Marriage is. Responsible. Susan. This is a city that is prepared for practically everything. Keep this if you keep the traffic flowing keep the city clean. Trust no man safety. Again so they say we are better prepared than most cities singular at this are gods the overall control of the. Say the police drunkenness is a problem. Still on aquatics like everyone else. So is traffic and so indeed is boredom with nothing to do. The teenagers from the suburbs coming to town with their minds been to instruction the police are demanding more control into the city getting they emphasize that it is a mix of her. Home and on. Each year nodded I’ve been she once wrote he who put six system of his foes to live afraid of love. We’re one gold medals for our safety the one prices on the continent. Double trouble. The insurance companies and the police seem to prefer our high standards of to anyone. We are certainly a consumer society. Ourselves the stores are in the lead with coupons and premium to you we are being called a gadget society and they have been discussed which kind of society people really want. Shelby continue with this so-called God society and if you know what do we want him to. Show you something very special. That’s the impulse char it’s a very special project. Swedish. What’s impulses that is Dr Schauer can change between home code in special impulses you regulate the impulses here that something like a song you get hot cold cold and for this you feel very nice and you will be refreshed. Pricing The. Calling it is when you. Know you. Want give us run by. For advertising the unnecessary in calling it could. You. Give us was frantic by. The for the advertising the unnecessary and pulling it toward the. U.N. it is. You. Give the up front take your buying and selling for advertising the un necessary and calling it good business. When it is no good for you. Once upon a time there was a man who had only one thought in his head it was to own. One day he walked into a big jeweler’s shop and stuff you found in his pockets. Then he will start to get out of course a pretty found ones and they are still. There are so many people in the shop. How could you possibly think you get away with. A man on said. I didn’t see the people I only just saw the to. Talk on a golden city surrounded by frozen water leading to the Bulls. The city bridge in the city with its true big red. The city with at least one for every one hundred fifteen have been. As recently as in the mid nineteenth century we were one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in Europe. Very soon there will be two cars per family unit this. Country for telephones in the world. The city between. A popular most a little and when our modern stock was born the name spoke means logs which were connected with chains and thrown into the water to protect the island against inflation. Was a contemporary word for island though. The only town is the home it’s a jumble of narrow streets cozy with trolls. Small square where there’s usually someone trying to calm this time it is college physics talkin to Butch crunching to provide gazed indoors and the leads will open just in time for these. Stock and was built in the wrong page as city officials it not long ago when the only times the rule is didn’t want to make it comfortable with thinking of military strategy a place difficult to get at them directed certainly is being guarded by a GREAT are cheaper to go. The only town was described by one Monarch a long time ago as a dancer and a godly. This is ghost of a buffer. Who’s supposed to have been the greatest Rula we have ever had he looked upon stuck on as the nation’s greatest. Fortress he was regarded as the founder of the modern Swedish nation and has been called the George Washington of Sweden. Once upon a time there was a woman who had lived most of her life away from my native land. One day when she was there and a phrase she decided that she paid this it to her home town with her friends. They. Are bit so they said we don’t talk to your town don’t you remember. She looked she didn’t remember but she said they moved. And dad is the screen and the hopes that you live for the apparent. The tears welled up in her eyes and look they said that’s why your father and mother were buried. She couldn’t contain a set of any longer and the tears ran down the cheek. Have friends who are little bit embarrassed by this and they said sorry dear only trying to teach you this is just a little village you were born in a very big town which is grown bigger over the years. She was a bit taken aback by their teaching but she didn’t really mind. When. Once they arrived in her hometown and she saw the street and the house which she had lived when with her parents she was very surprised that she wasn’t moved to tears because that’s what she had been and have friends. She looked again. And what did she see. She sought a town like any other town a street like any of the street a house a grey. So. You’re sure to have a warm welcome when you arrived in Stockholm but don’t be surprised that if you’re right in mid-winter to get something lethal common cold the last second a kind of melancholy induced by too much Dr Who. And the upturned face. Ever briefly the sound aside I’m so. So. Would. Hope. Ther. Are you. Acting. You know. Yes. Or. No. The Royal Palace dominates the otoh a large cumbersome please. Christina preferred streets the opening of the study or the theatre. According to ministers she squandered the money of the people on the list game. Thanks to cold. She couldn’t convince them that she thought the theater just as important as bread and that is of course an arguable point. Green Christine one of the strangest and most fascinating creature of God is a made. That’s why I wrote a play about. I have just written some no From our discussion. She had made intelligence. I could have talked to her. Always agree that security is our greatest enemy. That patriotism is a been ition psychotic all of it is. That more weapons bring on board. And that the more powerful the weapon that the nation has the mall in secure it the. That when you have a deep freezer for there might be some lack of spiritual. That marriage is a high. For which no compass was ever invented. That man on the whole like the company of ladies as long as they keep quiet. That men still say. That must something wrong with a woman who is intelligent and one to learn. Then we can all agree. That life is an incurable disease that goes on and on by and that every woman. Every man. In the end is as lonely as a light. A pleasant evening it with friends. Sure. The more daring than careful when you’re willing to cheat. Times when I get so confused that I believe that everything I’ve written is more real than reality itself. It’s all a dream an illusion. Perhaps I’ve been away from stock on too long. I don’t seem to have the same kind of wishes of my complexion. Here a minute. In a group in securing. Love. You say you. A thing you are.
__________
10 of Mai Zetterling’s 18 films
__________
The War Game (1963)
‘Mai Zetterling’s short film The War Game (1963) offers up an indictment of how young children (especially boys) are indoctrinated into a worldview that accepts and valourizes violence. Two boys rampage through an urban landscape fighting to possess a real gun, consistently ignored and unacknowledged by the few adults they encounter. A substantial success (it won best short at Venice in 1963), the film launched Swedish actor Zetterling’s directorial career.’ — tiff
__________
Loving Couples (1964)
‘The title of Mai Zetterling’s boldly iconoclastic debut feature—adapted from a cycle of seven novels by the provocative feminist writer Agnes von Krusenstjerna—drips with irony. In 1915, three pregnant women from varying social backgrounds (Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, and Gio Petré) enter a maternity ward. Cue a swirl of perspective-shifting flashbacks that, with searing psychological insight, illuminate the divergent yet interconnected experiences that brought them there—and that came to a head during one lavish, debauched Midsommar celebration. Wildly subversive in its treatment of sexuality, gender, class, religion, marriage, and motherhood, Loving Couples is as electrifying a first feature as any in cinema history, announcing the arrival of an uncompromising artist in pursuit of raw emotional truth.’ — The Criterion Collection
Trailer
Watch it here
Excerpt
____________
Night Games (1966)
‘One of John Waters’ all-time favorite films, Mai Zetterling’s scandalous sophomore directorial outing was denied a public screening at the 1966 Venice Film Festival. (The jury viewed it privately.) This lightning rod of a movie also prompted former child star Shirley Temple to resign from the board of the San Francisco Film Festival when they refused to pull it from their program. It tells of an unstable man who brings his fiancée to his palatial childhood home. There memories of his Oedipal fixation on his dissolute mother (Ingrid Thulin) begin to undermine his current relationship. “A wickedly sensuous Strindbergian drama, handled with a sharp eye for decadent details.” – Holt Foreign Film Guide.’ — cia.edu
Trailer
_____________
Doctor Glas (1968)
‘A doctor is tortured by his love for a patient, by his adulterous desire and his professional scruples. As per Zetterling, it’s about sex and pleasure but also about disgust, and about love and pregnancy but also about infidelity, abortion, euthanasia and murder. The contrast and focus of the monochrome photography are pushed to extremes as the doctor’s mind and self-control disintegrate.’ — Pamela Hutchinson
Excerpt
____________
The Girls (1968)
‘Mai Zetterling’s cinema reached new heights of exuberant experimentation and fierce political engagement with this pointed and playful touchstone of 1960s feminist cinema. As they tour Sweden in a theatrical production of Lysistrata, performing to often uncomprehending audiences, three women (national cinema icons Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, and Gunnel Lindblom) find their own lives and marriages mirrored in the complex, combative gender relations at the heart of Aristophanes’s play. Onstage drama, offstage reality, and a torrent of surrealist fantasies and daydreams collide in The Girls, a slashing, sardonic reflection on the myriad challenges confronting women on their path to liberation, and on the struggles of the female artist fighting to make her voice heard over the patriarchal din.’ — The Criterion Collection
Trailer
the entirety
___________
The Moon Is a Green Cheese (1977)
‘What starts as a naturalistic drama in the archipelago of Stockholm is quickly melting down into a psychedelic, dadaistic pallet of colors and imagination. Mai Zetterling doesn’t hold back on the surrealistic imagery, veering into litteral clownery as the film is drenched in colors and circus as two clowns stuff each other with spaghetti in quite the unsettling way. It’s odd and aesthetically flashy.’ — Xplodera
_____________
Stockholm (1978)
‘It’s not a loving picture that mai zetterling paints of stockholm, but i can’t help feeling so warm after watching this. about fifty years has passed since this was made and nothing has changed, which should make me sad, but i feel too much at home!!’ — kasja
the entirety
_____________
Scrubbers (1982)
‘“It ain’t fun to rot in prison and have shit thrown on your head,” bemoans a young woman as she is led back to her cell. Such pungent musings are the stuff of Scrubbers, a film by Mai Zetterling, which abruptly displaces some of the hackneyed clichés of the women’s-prison genre. It introduces clarity and wit into this sadly predictable arena of semi-circuitous T and A, which is usually marked by a glowering absence of presence (or vice versa).’ — Barbara Kruger, Artforum
Trailer
___________
Amorosa (1986)
‘The disconnect between myself and Zetterling’s cinema seems to be one born of the division present in her own formal qualities. Her displacement of being through the compromising etiquette of higher powers – be it the spiritual slave state, the hierarchy of family or the classism in wedded nobility, is rendered in such a mentally cavernous esoterica. A real freak flow of psych deterioration that has warped chronology into an indiscernible ruin of time and space, the wants of sexuality written as a bodily pleasure suffered through the depths of conservative hell.
‘But it’s in her turn to the conventional definitions of existentialism that the mouth runs amuck with Bergman-esque literalist monologues. The plainly stated chamber discussion shifts the philosophical away from the deeper forms of consciousness that would otherwise be explored with such surrealist texture (must stress – Zetterling has a phenomenally expressive view for such inserts, stretching all the way back to her debut with Loving Couples), leaving only that which is forthrightly articulated. It’s an appeal that pleads from confines seemingly insurmountable. But when Zetterling opens on the sight of the feminine apocalypse, a procession of bound sensuality thrashing between asylum inquisitors atop the Venice canals, it’s hard to accept the banality of one lost soul asking another whether they believe in god.’ — Jack Russo
Trailer
__________
Betongmormor (1986)
‘Shows projects built by Skanska all over the world. In Germany, Algeria, Indonesia, Greenland, but also Sweden; Stockholm, Åre and Helsingborg.’ — IMDb
Excerpt
*
p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Cool!!! It takes a very unspecial person to bring out my assholishness. Yes, love got me and the buche to the destination safely. This is it, and these are my friends Ange, Zac, Adem, and Alex who were about to eat it with me. It was very yum. Was it RE’s birthday yesterday? So close to the mythical JC’s birthday. That must mean something. Love putting the X in Xmas, G. ** CAUTIVOS, Thank you! Oh, hm, I don’t know of an entire Xmas themed poetry book that isn’t doggrel. I really love James Tate. Maybe I recommend his Selected Poems. ‘Howl’s’ great. I don’t think much else of his poetry is. James Tate’s poems don’t take a long time to take hold, so, yeah, try him? Same for your wishes, sir. ** Tosh Berman, Thanks, T. I tried. Bukowski does get to people. The French love him, for instance. He’s pretty good with punchlines, I’ll say that. Open mindedness is always the goal, no? Except when fascism, etc. is the subject. ** _Black_Acrylic, Happy to have lead you into the time-appropriate spirit. Oh, no, about the course cancellation. That fucking sucks. Is there no alternative? But hey, don’t let that stop you, for goodness sake. ** jade, Hi. Oh, I’ve never communicated with KS ever. We just look at each other’s social media feed and, I guess, read each other’s stuff, but we aren’t personally acquainted in the slightest. I don’t think you need to worry about anything, though. My impression of you is only inflating, trust me. Ah, papers to do. Yeah. My short time at university was good, but I sure don’t miss writing papers. Sure, you can put the poems on your blog, no problem, and that’s a compliment if anything. Nice poems you picked/liked. Me too, I guess obviously. Oh, wow, I’ll try that sneaky route into Z-Lib. Everyone, Psssst … Jade says there’s a roundabout way to access the tragically murdered Z-Lib site. I’m sure going to give it a shot, and you can seemingly sort it out too, if you want, but going here to start. Thanks! I would love to have that site available again. Talking with you is great for me too. A boon, indeed. Your comments are registering, but I guess you can’t tell. That happens sometimes and is one of the blog’s weird behavioral ticks. Love, me. ** Jamie, Hi, J. My, you know, total pleasure. Writing routines are one of life’s secret cures. Or not life’s but … wait, yeah, life’s. What else is there? Placing submissions: yes, thumbs way up. When I’m writing and confused by what I’m writing I tend to assume that’s what they mean about the muse and shit. Movie stuff progresses. There’s so much to do, but I think we’ll be fine. Continual terror that the person responsible for raising the last money we need isn’t going to fulfil his promise, but that’s out of Zac’s and my hands. Cool you saw that short Akerman. The main girl in that was so fantastic. Kit Kats can be a mouth party’s but, at the same time, their abilities are highly overrated, so comfort yourself thusly. You know exactly what I would most like my day today to be like. How did you do that? I hope Tinkerbell flutters around your head all day. “Diss Never (Dig Up We History)” by Tricky love, Dennis. ** l@rst, Thanks, pal. I love the idea of ‘the real poet-deal’, and I think I know what you mean. Can’t wait to dig into your chapbook. It’s on deck. The personal reports and reviews of the ‘White Noise’ movie are so extremely polarised. It does make me warily curious. ** Steve Erickson, I should ask Gaspar, but I really think you’re right. Xmas Day? Zac and I might go see the new Serra film and ride the Xmas themed dark ride at the Paris Xmas fair, but, other than that and enjoying the empty streets, no plans. You? Cool. I’m so interested to see ‘SKINAMARINK’. ** Robert, Hi, Robert. You’re very welcome, glad you liked it/them. Right, the big winter storm. It’s headlines even way over here. Ashbery is my all time favorite American writer so big up on the idea of you reading him. Paris is okay. It looks great at Xmas. It’s not that cold. It’s raining too much. Work on the film is constant, and it’s going pretty well. Oh, so sorry about you having skip out on Chicago if you have to. Grr. When you get to that point in something you’re writing, you just need to put it aside and not even look at it for a while. That’s a pretty common short term problem, at least for me. And taking a breather almost always does the trick. Hope your today is usually and spectacularly wow. ** Meg Gluth, Deserved words are mostly kind to the speaker of them. Which made sense in my head before I typed it, I swear. ** World❤Princess, Hello, World❤Princess. How lovely to be able to make your acquaintance. Thank you so much about ‘I Wished’. That novel means a lot to me, so hearing that means a great deal. You wrote your own ending! Awesome! Oh, gosh, I don’t suppose I can read your real ending? Well, if you ever feel silly or not silly at all and want to comment again, do feel free. It’d be cool to get to know you. Thank you again, take care, and Merry Xmas! ** Right. Do you know the really interesting films of the Swedish director Mai Zetterling? If not, you can start here/today, if you like. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
