Help!

[help]

I just saw FA for the first time about a week ago. I'd had it on my list for many years but kept putting it off. I'm kind of glad I did because I think I lucked out and saw it at exactly the right time in my life. Only, I've had a rough week! I've had sleepless nights. I see stars during the day. Stars with the faces of Elin and Agnes! It's like walking through a thick cloud all day. What can I do? Here's what has happened in the space of a week: I watched the film, I watched it again immediately after, I spent the night scouring google images and imdb, I didn't sleep, I spent the next day in a dream with the song Show Me Love on repeat, I watched the film again that night, had to take sleeping tablets, scoured the internet for a copy of FA on dvd, flew into a rage when I discovered I could only buy one titled Show Me Love, bought it anyway because I just HAD to own it (I felt like my life depended on it), now I've been exercising about two hours a day, with huge intensity, while only listening to the one song Show Me Love!, every time I think of the scene where Agnes is in her bed crying and her voice is stuck in her throat my eyes well up with tears, I have spent the week on the biggest high but now I'm starting to come down... which is difficult. I feel depressed. I feel sad to have discovered the film only now--years too late it seems. I feel like I've missed it all--again. I'm at a loss for what to do now. I haven't felt this way about a film since I saw Sister My Sister many years ago. I suppose this has happened to a few people here. How do you deal with it? I'm such a monomaniac sometimes. I can't think straight. I am usually a lot more composed and articulate, but I'm a mess at the moment. I'm 25, male, live in Australia, and am in love with Agnes to the degree that i feel like a schoolboy again. I feel like a real idiot and of course have absolutely no one to talk to about this. I'm so glad this board has survived. Thanks.

[snaps]

I suppose this has happened to a few people here. How do you deal with it? I'm such a monomaniac sometimes. I can't think straight. I am usually a lot more composed and articulate, but I'm a mess at the moment. I'm 25, male, live in Australia .....

Ah yes! Australia. You have a few fellow reprobates on here. It's called the Distance from Stockholm Syndrome. The further away, the more intense the feelings.

I've had sleepless nights. I see stars during the day. Stars with the faces of Elin and Agnes! It's like walking through a thick cloud all day. What can I do? .

Nothing, but join in the Forum and have fun. Chill! don't worry, the so called ''FA Effect'' only last on average ten years. Plenty of time for recovery.

I recommend as an antidote to continously listening to Robyn singing ''Show Me Love'' get the CD of the film music, which has sampled quotes from the film in between the songs. The you can start a whole new obsession with Broder Daniel and their music.

Don't feel sad about having just made the discovery. You have all the repeat joy yet to come. Search out the remaining fansites on line for pictures and articles, many of which get updated here. Not many films have still active sites going 12 years after the film was made.

You are not alone. It's never too late for FA. There are school and youth theatre productions based on the film ongoing in the last three years in Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden for example. Try writing some fanfiction to work out your own interpretation of what might have happened next. Lots of possibilities. Follow the careers of the actors and find out the fascinating stories of what THEY did next. Then get your life together and decide what YOU are going to do next.

You'll still need the FA fix occasionally, but you'll always remember your first time, and the day you caught the FA/SML bug.

[bruno]

Ah yes! Australia. You have a few fellow reprobates on here. It's called the Distance from Stockholm Syndrome. The further away, the more intense the feelings.

Another one from Australia ?!! I don't know if the numbers are meaningful from a statistic point of vue, but this link should be investigated

[fish]

Must be the warm weather.

Welcome Help.
Can't ever be enough from Oz. Where ya from?

[Ian]

Welcome to the forum, help. As you will no doubt have noticed by now, you are not alone...

I know what it's like, discovering something when it feels like the party ended a long time ago, but as snaps says, it's not many movies that still have a forum dedicated to them 12 years after the event. So the party may be over, but we're all having a hell of a time here at the wake.

Yeah, it's the heat. Gotta be. Either that, or the sheilas just don't cut the mustard when compared to Agnes and Elin.

[Agnes&Elin Forever!]

Welcome to the forum, help

[help]

Wow! I'd like to thank everyone for the warm welcome Really wasn't expecting this level of enthusiasm. It's really nice to see you guys have kept the torch burning. I really appreciate that, I'd have been in serious trouble if this place didn't exist. I'm also surprised to see a few Aussies here. It makes me feel somehow, I don't know, less of a lunatic?

I'm from sunny Townsville myself. I'm studying to be a filmmaker and so have seen more films than I care to mention. It's incredible to think I'd seen it all, to think I had become jaded and there were to be no more surprises--I still can't believe it. For me it's like winning the lotto, and this film was the big 20 million or something. The film has taken such a strong grip on me that I have actually been feeling sick in the stomach the last two days and have not eaten properly. These are good signs for me that let me know I've seen a life-altering film.

The film is already hugely nostalgic for me, I guess it's the fact that it was released when I was in grade 8, and that I know with certainty that another film like it can never be made, and, I guess, that Lukas is so far from that film now--seems like a forgotten world. Yes Elin and Agnes have been immortalised, but I have not. Does that make sense? The constant feeling of missing things, always being stuck on the outside, so far away from life and action. I'm not talking about myself as a filmmaker, just as a person. I feel queasy thinking about it now. It's as though my childhood should have been with them, but I missed it somehow.

I notice you are having a hell of a wake--the captions thread is hilarious Anyhow, this forum is brilliant and I feel privileged just to be able to post here. I just can't help feeling... so damn sad I am scared to put the film on again for some reason. Has this film made anyone else here sick with longing?

Oh yeah, the picture of Rebecka in my avatar is doing some serious damage at the moment. The parted lips, ahhhhhh...... the eyes, devine...

It's funny to read Moodysson saying he is not influenced by Bergman, yet the dream sequence is straight out of Persona. I think the scene from FA is the more beautiful of the two, even though I love Bergman to death.

What happens when this site dissolves though? When we are all captioned out? When we bite each other too hard? I am troubled already. If the fire goes out here, what then? I don't want to think about it. I'll be happier in a few days and this board will light up like a Christmas tree.

[bruno]

The film is already hugely nostalgic for me, I guess it's the fact that it was released when I was in grade 8, and that I know with certainty that another film like it can never be made, and, I guess, that Lukas is so far from that film now--seems like a forgotten world. Yes Elin and Agnes have been immortalised, but I have not. Does that make sense? The constant feeling of missing things, always being stuck on the outside, so far away from life and action. I'm not talking about myself as a filmmaker, just as a person. I feel queasy thinking about it now. It's as though my childhood should have been with them, but I missed it somehow.
......
Has this film made anyone else here sick with longing?

I don't know if everyone loves the film for exactly the same reasons. In my case, I've seen the movie 10 years after first release (ever being curious about it, wanting to watch it, but it never happened for so many years) but I was over 30 even then. I got hit by the film but not to the extent many people described in these pages.
My interest is not for the gay stuff (for me it's just a symbol of what you don't manage to express) nor I "fell in love" with one of the two girls, but I feel for the more general theme about people fighting for their freedom, finding their true self, struggling with fear and shame, reaching for their happiness. These themes are familiar to a lot of people that can identify with the movie and/or the characters, so I'm not surprised by the huge success of FÅ because it was good at speaking of that; and if these theme are of great importance to you, this film can really take a very special status in your mind.

It gave me nostalgia of youth times, obviously. And memories of being cut off from life and action, just as you say, because I didn't dare to do things, I didn't say the right words when I should have, and so on.

So in a way it can be different things for different people, but in a sense it's the same thing and you can find it in the word of others.

I'm not so good at writing of complex things in a foreign language but I hope my words were clear enough.

[snaps]

This site will never dissolve because I'm a vampire and I will keep it going.

If you're into filmmaking you will no doubt have seen a few genre and genre related films. I have been recommended Bergman's ''Wild Strawberries'' but haven't got round to it yet. Quite a few more recent films like ''Jennifer's Body'' are ''lesbo-nod in that direction'' fashionable. I've seen a few and this film relates better to the level of a film like ''Girl, Interrupted'' and also more recently ''Cracks''. You should also be aware of ''Kamikaze Girls'' (Japan) and ''XXY'' (Argentina) and the ''Millenium Trilogy'' of Stieg Larsson's novels which explore more multi-faceted dimensions of female sexuality.

I'm a big fan of ''Ginger Snaps'' (2000, Canada) which is metaphorically at least on similar turf. There is also ''Let the Right One In'' (2009, Sweden) which has thematic overlaps.

Most of all there is ''Naissance des Pieuvres'' (2007, France) which is probably the most directly related to SML/FA that I have seen so far, and my all-time personal favourite.

Try and track down some of the ''fanfiction'' SML/FA stories on various sites, then write your own! It's good therapy!

Play with the idea in the absence of a remake. Jenny Agutter played Bobbie Waterbury as a young girl, and then her mother in the remake of ''The Railway Children''

''Fucking Amal II, the Next Generation'' written and directed by Help. Starring Vera Liljeberg Skepp as Agnes Ahlberg-Olsson, featuring Rebecka Liljeberg as Mama Agnes and Alexandra Dahlstrom as Mama Elin''.

[Agnes&Elin Forever!]

Lukas Moodysson said before the premiere that he hoped the film would appeal to both teenagers and older people

And as you probably know this low-budget flick became a surprise hit that even outdid Titanic at the box office in Sweden in 1998-99

I really like Moodysson's style of filmmaking in FÅ, and also in his Lilya 4-Ever (2002)

And of course what largely carries FÅ and made it such a success is it's wonderful cast, and the music of Swedish indie-band Broder Daniel and others

I don't think it would have worked as well without these things clicking

Btw, some Spanish guy has put the whole soundtrack of FÅ on Youtube, enjoy if you haven't got the soundtrack CD

Whirlwind by Broder Daniel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-PJwIiXO7E&feature=related

[Agnes&Elin Forever!]

Drifter by Yvonne played during the film's intro is really great as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SnCR3tvUo&feature=related

[Agnes&Elin Forever!]

Another BD song, not from the movie, but one that perhaps would be suitable for us few remaining fans who stay here, years after the film came out

No Time For Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojfXgN7MTcA&NR=1

[help]

Thanks Bruno, your English is great. I appreciate it must be challenging to express yourself in a second language--hell, I have enough trouble expressing myself in English and it's my first language I have to admit to a bit of silliness. I go on hunts for new films, and usually make lists like tree diagrams. That is, if I see a film I like, I search for related films, and recommendations by others that have seen the films--much the same as anyone else does, I guess. But somehow FA got onto a list with films such as Baise-moi and the like, and so I thought the title referred to some sort of quest to fuck a girl named Amal Consequently the film got lumped in with others I was in no hurry to see. Wasn't until I saw The Quiet that I stumbled on a little bit of the story of FA, and that made me very eager to hunt the film down and finally watch it. It was a very pleasant surprise to discover such a sweet, delicate, and tactful film. I am used to being beaten over the head by Lars with his dogme films, and in fact, the only dogme film I've seen that I rate highly is Festen. Rather a meandering way of saying I've learnt my lesson not to dismiss a film based on it's perceived associations.

And as for the film, yes, I agree it is superbly crafted. The fact of two teenage girls falling in love is not the linchpin of the film. I am not smitten by the film because it fulfills a fantasy (although, to be fair, it does fulfill a few that come to mind ) , for indeed there are precisely two kisses in the film. What attracts me is how vulnerable everyone in the film is, and how genuine all the characters are. Sounds cheap and generic, but it is a damn difficult task to find films where the actors are this human. The film also sets up a perfect equilibrium between drama and comedy. Someone once said there can be no successful drama without comedy, and this film demonstrates that with the lightest of touches. When comparing most other films with FA suddenly they seem awfully contrived. I cannot think of a single event in FA that is contrived, the movie progresses so organically it seems to somehow transcend the normal barriers of a fictional film. It's more real than real, you know. More affecting than if it were a true documentary. I got that same feeling from watching Bresson's Mouchette, which will forever be my number one film. Anyway, this film is just so full of poignant and beautiful moments I am at a loss to understand how anyone could dislike it.

Snaps, thanks for the recommendations. I've seen Let the Right One In. Enjoyed it, though I would not call it a favourite. I'll check out Ginger Snaps when I get the chance. Incidentally, I had the chance to see Water Lilies (Naissance des Pieuvres) just recently (I am a big fan of Adele Haenel) and to be honest wasn't too impressed with it. I'd like to say I liked it, but on the whole I found it to be too forced and empty. The film had potential, that's for sure. I just don't think the story was handled the right way. As for similar films I can recommend, that is difficult. I don't think there is anything truly similar to FA. You might have a look at Sister My Sister if you get the chance, which is really a beautiful film. You should watch a few Bergman films sometime. I started with Through A Glass Darkly and that was THE film that forever changed the way I thought about cinema. I consider Persona, Cries and Whispers, Fanny and Alexander, and TAGD to be his masterpieces. Wild Strawberries is also very good. Seventh Seal is also fantastic if you enjoy more theatrical performances. Maybe we should start a topic for recommending films? I will get cracking on my new screenplay FA 2 As for mama Agnes, I noticed in the photo of her reunion with Alex she still looks just as cute and adorable as she did when she was 16. She has not aged at all it seems!

Thanks, Agnes&Elin, for the youtube links. They will bring me some relief.

[Ian]

There are a couple of YT channels you might find interesting, help. Just type Rebecka Liljeberg into YouTube and it shouldn't be too hard to find them...

[kant1781]

I just can't help feeling... so damn sad ... Has this film made anyone else here sick with longing?

You must be joking ! You should check this out:
http://www.showmelove.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=490
Great to have you, help. (At last, another Bergman connoisseur around!! )