Ludicrous lapses in logic and credibility really badly sadly undermine what is technically an interesting Swedish production of repetitive face smashing boarding school bullying. If you have never seen another film and this is your first trip to the cinema then you might be impressed and appalled in equal servings... especially if as an audience member you simply - very simply - just accept anything that arrives on screen without wondering how and why it is there. You can read other comments for the storyline but I shall keep my comments to my reaction at enduring 113 bewildering minutes of what is an 80 minute idea stretched with implausible melodrama, really obvious cliché character/casting, and truly offensive disgusting explicit violence. If you get past the first 5 minutes and the bleeding busted pulverised teenage face depicted in steady gruesome distressing close-up you will immediately realise this film is made by someone who believes his audience are sooooo stupid, simpleton and unintelligent that the film must be made with every moment, every act of ridiculous cruelty and hammy melodrama pasted onto their shiny eager audience faces. Here is a film about bullying in a boarding school. Here is a young handsome teen central actor who smashes faces at school. Cue ugliness, but it is almost OK apparently because he is handsome and misunderstood and his stepfather is a bully too (poor kid is Cinderfeller). Packed off to the most corrupt boarding school imaginable, run by isolated muppet old men and with an in-your-face group of absurdly sadistic prefects EVIL becomes increasingly unintelligent and implausible ... for this simple reason: all the viciousness and team cruelty is played completely out in the open, the whole school knows about it and for 100 minutes nobody does anything except look mournful, or hurt or cries... even the kitchen staff and all other schoolboys - everyone - but nobody goes to the police, or charges the headmaster's office with 50 kids in tow to accuse the headmaster of allowing this cretinous stupidity to fester unchecked and unstopped in what is supposed to be an elite boarding academy. Everyone keeps saying 'don't fight back, you might get expelled'.... well wouldn't you actually WANT to be expelled from this stupid hell hole? Why stay there? Is there no other schools in Sweden? How easy would it be to go to the Education Authorities or the Police and expose this cruelty? The whole school is a witness to it.... Yeesh! In the last ten minutes our 'hero' Erik phones a lawyer who prances in (hilarious clichéd character and performance) and - bingo! - problem solved! Also, the climactic forest scene between Senior teen Silverhielm defies logic... apparently they are both miles in the forest when this confrontation scene happens... but why and how did they get exactly THERE? It is all just silly and insulting - to each other as characters and to the audience. If you have not seen SCHOOL TIES, or SWIMMING UPSTREAM, or TAPS , or HARRY POTTER 1 2 3 4 5, or DEAD POET SOCIETY or the great German Nazi teen drama NAPOLA then you might find some unseen clichés here.. This film is tedious implausible angry angst played and directed really badly. Apparently at the end of it all Erik, our 'hero' has learned not to smash faces anymore because of the horrible pointless hazing he saw and got at this stupid corrupt school. He even has the stock standard tubby nerdy room mate... it is cliché after cliché with a keenness by the director to explicitly depict visual viciousness.. which in turn could make the director a bully too towards the audience. We are not that stupid that we cannot see all these inconsistencies.. and for that alone makes ONDSKAN a really poorly directed and depicted story. This is an ugly film using ugliness to show ugliness and dressing it up with obvious casting choices and some nice 50s styling. Nominated for an Oscar? Was it the only film from Sweden in 2003? Impossible.
