One man, one woman, one room, one night. Depending on your mind set, it either sounds extremely boring or like one heck of a good time. This movie isn't exactly either, and it's definitely not for everyone.
I'm a big fan of period movies. I love a good one and probably like a lot of the bad ones too. But don't make the mistake of going into this movie looking for your typical period piece romance. It's more of a psychological drama about class distinctions and gender expectations. And a strange one at that. I was somehow left with the feeling that I was watching a car wreck in progress. Moderately interesting in one way, but decidedly morbid in another. I felt rather bored, but still compelled to see it through and watch it till the end. Which left me with a slightly disgusted feeling for having bothered.
This movie lacks several somethings that I didn't feel like I could quite put my finger on. It obviously lacks the pageantry of all the expected costume changes of a movie of this genre, but that's not it's only problem.
I felt no chemistry between the hero and heroine and found their relationship basically unbelievable. I could find no reason to believe that she would be attracted to such an obnoxious person for even a moment.
Can you say artsy-fartsy filming? Okay, so there were a few moments, like the use of the split screen for one scene and the use of a distorted mirror that were interesting. But that awful shaky camera style is distracting, annoying, and totally inappropriate for the material.
Although the setting of the scenes in the movie are supposedly in Sweden, the actors all talk with English accents. I found this to be rather distracting as it kept bringing me out of the time frame and setting of the movie.
Picture quality: This is not a great transfer for a DVD. In some places it looks rather like a movie taken from old film stock and not cleaned up instead of a film made as recently as 1999.
Sound quality: There are no English subtitles on this DVD (what is MGMs problem with that?!) and boy, does it need it in some places. The accents are only a tiny concern but the recording of the sound in general is awful in some places. And I'm not just talking about the jarring music itself. The volume had to be turned up to hear what the actors were saying but turned down to hear yourself think when the music came on. I ended up leaving the TV speaker on while also using my sound system and just muting the latter whenever the music came on.
I gave it a 5/10 because the actors did a good job with what they were given. But all and all, I think a person's time would be better spent watching something else.
I'm a big fan of period movies. I love a good one and probably like a lot of the bad ones too. But don't make the mistake of going into this movie looking for your typical period piece romance. It's more of a psychological drama about class distinctions and gender expectations. And a strange one at that. I was somehow left with the feeling that I was watching a car wreck in progress. Moderately interesting in one way, but decidedly morbid in another. I felt rather bored, but still compelled to see it through and watch it till the end. Which left me with a slightly disgusted feeling for having bothered.
This movie lacks several somethings that I didn't feel like I could quite put my finger on. It obviously lacks the pageantry of all the expected costume changes of a movie of this genre, but that's not it's only problem.
I felt no chemistry between the hero and heroine and found their relationship basically unbelievable. I could find no reason to believe that she would be attracted to such an obnoxious person for even a moment.
Can you say artsy-fartsy filming? Okay, so there were a few moments, like the use of the split screen for one scene and the use of a distorted mirror that were interesting. But that awful shaky camera style is distracting, annoying, and totally inappropriate for the material.
Although the setting of the scenes in the movie are supposedly in Sweden, the actors all talk with English accents. I found this to be rather distracting as it kept bringing me out of the time frame and setting of the movie.
Picture quality: This is not a great transfer for a DVD. In some places it looks rather like a movie taken from old film stock and not cleaned up instead of a film made as recently as 1999.
Sound quality: There are no English subtitles on this DVD (what is MGMs problem with that?!) and boy, does it need it in some places. The accents are only a tiny concern but the recording of the sound in general is awful in some places. And I'm not just talking about the jarring music itself. The volume had to be turned up to hear what the actors were saying but turned down to hear yourself think when the music came on. I ended up leaving the TV speaker on while also using my sound system and just muting the latter whenever the music came on.
I gave it a 5/10 because the actors did a good job with what they were given. But all and all, I think a person's time would be better spent watching something else.