New Moodysson Film

[Jenny]

Hi,
Just as an info : Lukas is going to make a new movie. Pre-production has already started with test shoots and the script is about to be completed be him.

Working title is "Container".


Jenny

[Rebecka Fan]

awesome!!

[Narcissus]

woohoo!

[Emiliano]

wow! perhaps i'll see this film in 2020

[sydney]

You can read the following on the site of Oebfa:

Two years have passed since Ett hål i mitt hjärta (A Hole in My Heart), so it's finally time for a new film from Lukas Moodysson: Container will premiere in only a month in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival, February 9- 19. This was announced in a press release from the Swedish Film Institute yesterday. "I'm very happy and a bit surprised that the film was selected. It's so weird that I didn't think anyone would want it," Lukas Moodysson comments.

"Container" is even more experimental than "Ett hål i mitt hjärta", but unlike that it doesn't contain any strong imagery. It's a pure art-film in black- and white with no clear structured storyline. Even so, Lukas Moodysson's distinct style is still recognizeable. The director describes it as "a black and white silent movie with sound" and with the following words; "A woman in a man's body. A man in a woman's body. Jesus in Mary's stomach. The water breaks. It floods into me. I can't close the lid. My heart is full".

The main cast of the film is Mariha Åberg (from Balletakademin - the Ballett Academy) and Peter Lorentzon ("Stockholm Boogie"). The film is actually produced in two versions; one Swedish and one English. The English version is narrated by Jena Melone, a very talented young indie-actress known from Saved! and Donnie Darko.

The English version will be shown in Berlin. An exact viewing date is not yet set. Later this year the film will released in a limited theatrical distribution in Sweden, and certainly many other countries.

[robinn]

Though i haven't seen A Hole In My Heart yet, it seems to me that he has lost total control!

"A woman in a man's body. A man in a woman's body. Jesus in Mary's stomach. The water breaks. It floods into me. I can't close the lid. My heart is full".



I guess that I am into experimental films, so we shall see! And it's great to see the forum working again

[sydney]

Lukas Moodysson let's his emotions influence the movies he makes. That is a good thing. But I have seen "A hole in my heart". In this movie his emotions are influencing the outcome of the film too much. It must not turn into a thing the noone is interested in. I hope he will find his way back soon to the thing he is really good in... Analyzing life in a realistic way.

[Narcissus]

I thought that a hole in my heart was a bit strong and was quite unnerving and weird. i didnt really like it much, so i hope that he can get back to 'old school moodysson'

[kant1781]

"Container" will premier at the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) on the 10th of February, 8 p.m. Can't go and watch it, but I'll see if I can gather some reviews afterwards. (Further screenings on February 11, 12, and 15).

And, by the way, Fucking Åmål will also get screened twice : To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the gay/lesbian Teddy Awards, a selection of films who won the award will be presented (FÅ won in 1999, when it was the audiences' favourite, and quite a few critics complained that it should have been a contender in the "big" competition for the Golden and Silver Bears, which unfortunately it wasn't.)

[kant1781]

He did it again....

Oh dear... one thing is clear, the great Moodysson has not returned to his former approach to filmmaking with his new piece, „Container“. Here’s the first review on this film that premiered yesterday in Berlin. It appeared in German on the Berlinale blog of perlentaucher.de. The (rather rough) translation into English is mine. Here it goes:

„With his first two films „Fucking Amal“ and „Together!“, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson became a favourite with an international audience. But since then, he has taken extraordinary licence to shock his audience and scare it off. His last film, „A Hole in the Heart“, brought the shooting of an amateur porn flick to the screen. And „Container“, now to be seen in the „Panorama“ section [of the Berlin International Film Festival], is surely a considerable impudence.

It begins simple, black and white, with very sober-looking text plates. But then the film pushes you into a terrible world. It’s dissociated from beginning to end, pictures and soundtrack are somehow connected to each other, but it is not clear exactly how. On the soundtrack we hear the monotonous singsong of a woman's voice who delivers an auditive stream-of-consciousness in American English for the extremely grainy pictures that look as if they were shot with an 8-mm-camera.

A fat man moves through a decrepit apartment flat. The voice of the woman on the soundtrack is this man’s Ego, who thinks that he is a beautiful woman, an actress even, trapped in an ugly body, desired by the world, followed by paparazzi. Celeb news of Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt, and Kylie Minogue are woven into the singsong that continues in the ever same grinding tone. The Ego that is talking here is sick, it wails, it laments the misery of the world. Among its obsessions are catastrophies, the World War, Chernobyl, the end of the world. Meanwhile pictures of dumps are to be seen, the fat man covers his face with adhesive tape and binds a small plastic doll to his mouth.

A woman turns up. The fat man carries her; she is, this much seems clear, the woman inside him, projected into the outer. The pictures keep floating in, the waste, the man, the woman; the words keep floating in, the catastrophies, the misery of the world. In the best moments, this becomes somehow hypnotic, in the worst moments, one understands the considerable part of the audience who leaves to escape.

Lukas Moodysson, a small man in black with a scarf and a hat and with flamingly yellow intars on his equally black shoes, does not really contribute anything helpful in the ensuing press conference. He can’t really explain how the text developed. The two actors, standing next to him, affirm that they just saw the film for the first time. They are obviously shocked. This, says the woman who plays the imagined star-actress-Ego inside of the fat man and who is actually a ballerina, this is not the script that I read.“

by Ekkehard Knörer
http://www.perlentaucher.de/artikel/2906.html

I'll keep on guard to see if more reviews turn up...

[sydney]

I'll keep on guard to see if more reviews turn up...

Thanks again Kant... This review is quite shocking. It seems that Moodysson took a wrong exit after directing Lilja 4-Ever. It doesn't look good, does it? Moodysson has always been my favourite director, but I don't know that anymore. I hope that FÅ, Together and Lilja 4-Ever are not his last masterpieces.

Oh, Kant... I hope you do not mind that I put your translation on a dutch Movieforum.

[kant1781]

I hope you do not mind that I put your translation on a dutch Movieforum.

No, not at all. Quite the contrary

Meanwhile, more news on "Container", but not significantly better. Another review appeared by ARTE TV's Nana A.T. Rebhan (below), which seems to confirm most of what the first one stated.

If you want to see for yourself, check this site: You can watch two clips from CONTAINER and LUKAS' PRESS CONFERENCE on the film!
http://www.teddyaward.tv/2006/index2.asp?KategorieID=1018&InhaltID=1703

Google also found two shorter Dutch commentaries on "Container" which maybe our esteemed webmaster could translate for us...? They are here:
http://www.cinema.nl/cinema/magazines/news/index.jsp?portals=3142294&magazines=5268514&news=26942864
http://www.onstage.nl/onstage/0,2083,1648_1132%5E1407-210047,00.html


So here is the second review (originally in German, the translation again is mine)

CONTAINER
reviewed by Nana A.T. Rebhan (ARTE TV, Strasbourg/France)
http://www.arte-tv.com/de/film/berlinale/filme/1119878.html

You can never be sure what young Swedish director Lukas Moodysson plans next. While his last feature, Lilja 4-ever (2002), was a politically committed accusation of women slave trade, he has now decided to play it experimental. He calls his latest film „autistic“ and adds: „Everything assails me.“ Any spectator who watches CONTAINER will be faced with the same problem.

The title is chosen with care. Like a container, the film collects and stores diverse materials, jumbles them up and spits them out again. For 74 minutes. 74 minutes can feel very long, felt time is relative. Thanks to the soft, constantly whispering voice of the American actress Jena Malone, the film brought soft, mild dreams to many spectators. They were completely in their own containers.

Those who stayed awake saw a lot of things, but there wasn’t a story. Peter Lorentzon plays a man, a woman caught in his body who wants to come out. The slightly plump actor wears whigs, his lipstick is smeared, he rolls around on the floor in women’s clothing. He cannot cope with his body. At first, Lorentzon did not want to play this role. He would have been the first actor to refuse performing in a film by Moodysson. The director begged him however.

Mariha Åberg is a dancer, asian, with a very beautiful body. She wears high boots reaching above her knees and moves very sensually. Sudden cuts to hands digging in debris try to be disgusting. The soft voice of Jena Malone is in the film just because she sent a letter to the director, asking to be allowed to work with him. She is not visible, but she’s the most present character of CONTAINER as she covers everything there is to be seen.

She whispers trivialities from recent media news, on Paris Hilton with whom she would like to have sex all day if she was a boy, on a party on which one of her breasts jumped out of her top because it was so tight and everyone believed she did it on purpose. Apparently Moodysson looted weblogs from the last months for his script. He says that CONTAINER is his reaction to current events. He also says that he likes chaos. But is that enough?

[robinn]

Thanks for the links and info kant! At the moment I'm having a fever and watching the samples of Container made me even more sick.

I translated one of the writings on the film in English. The author used a lot of difficult Dutch words which I didn't know how to translate correctly, but my translation says almost the same. (Sydney, feel free to improve it or whatsoever).

http://www.cinema.nl/cinema/magazines/n ... s=26942864

De Zweedse regisseur Lukas Moodysson, bejubeld om Fucking Amal en Together, was wel present bij de vertoning van zijn nieuwe film Container. Hij zal er met weinig plezier aan terugdenken. Tijdens de voorstelling was de helft van het publiek al weggelopen; de bejegening na afloop was vijandig. 'Na A Hole in My Heart dacht ik dat het niet erger, misogyner en somberder kon. Ik had het fout, helaas', riep iemand. Container is ook geen gemakkelijke kost. Grofkorrelige zwartwit-beelden van een dikke man en een jong meisje, worden begeleid door de stream of consciousness van een actrice met een piepstem, waarin wordt georakeld over Saddam, de maagd Maria, David Beckham, pornoster Savannah, Tsjernobyl, een man die vrouw wil worden, Jezus en Paris Hilton. Container is pretentieus én hypnotiserend; een film die blijft nazinderen in je hoofd.

The Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, praised because of his films Fucking Amal and Together, was present at the demonstration of his new film Container. He probably didn't have much fun, since half of the crowd left during the film, and he didn't receive any compliments at all afterwards. “After A Hole in My Heart I thought it couldn’t get any worse, more sad and more misogyny. I was wrong, unfortunately,” someone said. Container isn’t much of a chickflick. Raw, black and white images of a fat man and a young girl are being accompanied by the consciousness of an actress, oracle about Saddam, Maria, David Beckham, pornstar Savannah, Tsjernobyl, a man who wants to be a woman, Jesus and Paris Hilton. Container is pretentious and hypnotising; a film that will nest in your head.

[kant1781]

At the moment I'm having a fever and watching the samples of Container made me even more sick.

So get well soon !

And thanks for your translation!

I just watched the press conference (actually a 15-minute Q&A directly after the screening), which is quite interesting. Most importantly, Lukas simply denies that he has made any "developments" or "changed" his outlook, that he has become more "negative" or "pessimistic", even that his new films are more "experimental" than his older ones. As usual, he's not particularly eloquent, but as far as I get it, he wants to say that he tells every story just in the way it has to be told. He says that each of his films has a unique voice, "I had to tell Fucking Åmål in this voice, and in this film, I had to speak with a different voice". What is uplifting about that is that he explicitly says that there isn't any distance between him and his earlier films, he even says, "I could go back and make Fucking Åmål exactly like it is again today". So hopefully, some day soon, he will.
(Another uplifting thing is that Lars Jönsson obviously gets asked how long he's going to finance Lukas's experiments and says that he wanted to give him complete freedom for "one" (!) film... )

[sydney]

Thanks Kant en Robinn for the new infos on the film. I think your translation is OK Robinn, although I would translate "orakelen" with "oracle" as in oracle about Saddam... I have to admit, I looked it up

I heard that the Swedish version has been dubbed by Rebecka Liljeberg. This means that the voice over is Rebecka! How 'bout that. Does anyone know if this is this true?