Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!
ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre
TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
SnoopyStyle It's 1958 Sweden. Young boy Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is living with his older brother and his seriously ill mother. His best friend is a blonde little girl. The brothers are sent away when their mother gets too weak. Ingemar goes to live with his mother's odd brother Gunnar (von Brömssen) and his wife Ulla (Kicki Rundgren) in a rural town in Småland. Town tomboy Saga (Melinda Kinnaman) is a better athlete than every other boys and she grows to like Ingemar.The puppy love is adorable. This is a cute and a good deal of inappropriate coming-of-age story. It is hilarious at times. Kinnaman is funny and adorable especially when she starts getting jealous. The two of them are just adorable together.
bandw Ingemar is on the cusp of adolescence. It is the late 1950s Sweden. When the opening scene showed Ingemar on the beach amusing his mother with some childish antics, I was primed for a happy coming-of-age story. But then it is revealed that Ingemar is living at home with his mother who has tuberculosis. This sets the theme of the movie, just when you think things might be looking up for Ingemar, darker issues arise.Anton Glanzelius, who plays Ingemar, embodies a perfect combination of imp and winsomeness. He can cause adults grief with his trouble-making, but much of the time it is his innocence that gets him into trouble, like the time he has a small fire going in a trash dump that gets out of control, or the time he is suckered into an embarrassing prank at school. He has some odd behaviors, like approaching his milk glass with trepidation as if were one of life's great challenges to drink from it.When Ingemar becomes too much for his mother to handle he is sent to a small village down south to live with his uncle's family. This village has more than its share of eccentrics, like an older guy who is constantly repairing his roof, or the uncle's father who asks Ingemar to read to him from the lingerie section of a catalog. Much of the footage at the uncle's is gentle humor interspersed with typical trials of growing up. But then the mother dies. And so it goes.Ingemar has a delightful philosophical bent. As one way to deal with life's challenges he frequently tries to comfort himself by thinking that things could be worse. He keeps meditating on Laika, the dog that the Soviets sent into space in 1957, the first living animal sent up. In thinking of Laika, Ingemar comments, "You have to compare, so you can keep perspective. It helps to keep a little distance." He frets over the thought that Laika was sent into space knowing that he would most certainly starve to death. Maybe Ingemar sensed a wider metaphorical meaning--in some sense we are all shot into space at birth only ultimately to suffer the fate of certain death. The main musical theme perfectly captures the melancholic mood; its memory is one of the things that drew me to re-watch this after having first seen it over twenty years ago.
Michael Neumann A mischievous young boy with a Puckish smile, unusual table manners, and a sympathetic kinship to Laika the Soviet astro-dog is sent by his ailing mother to live with relatives in the country, where he discovers a town full of people even more eccentric than himself. Director Lasse Hallstrom's popular Swedish import offers a refreshing look at the mysteries and heartbreak of adolescence, with all the charm but none of the cloying sentiment of other, similar coming-of-age films. The rich humor is drawn around an affectionate portrait of small town life, closely observed; the pain comes from the realization that young Ingmar's bedridden mother has already ed away. The pace is often lazy and the film is overlong, but Hallstrom's understanding of human idiosyncrasies is reminiscent of a Jacques Tati comedy, choosing to laugh with instead of at his characters. It's a memorable look at love and mortality, as seen from the innocent eyes of a boy ing through that awkward age when he begins thinking like an adult while still unable to stop acting like a child.
Lee Eisenberg After I had seen "The Cider House Rules" and "Chocolat", I took some interest in Swedish-born director Lasse Hallstrom, and so I decided to check out one of his movies from his native country. "Mitt liv som hund" ("My Life as a Dog" in English) really impressed me. This story of abandoned boy Ingemar hits the perfect balance between sentimental and gritty, with one scene that was probably there for a little comic relief (you'll know what I mean if you see the movie). Probably the most effective scene is when Ingemar talks about Laika, the Soviet space-dog. Just as happened to Laika, Ingemar didn't want to have to go through this, it was done to him. And both Laika and Ingemar got left in limbo. Both were victims of cold, abstract forces.Anyway, this is definitely one that I recommend. In my opinion, Hallstrom's American movie most like this one was "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", about a destitute family in Iowa. Both are worth seeing.
