A love like this

Discuss Lukas Moodysson's first feature film Fucking Åmål (Show me Love).

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Postby droopy » Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:40 pm

kant1781 wrote:The connection to "Juno" (which, as you will have noticed, won the "best original screenplay" Oscar this year) is real, as it seems - "Juno" lead actress Ellen Page has, according to net rumours, stated that Fucking Åmål is one of her favourite films. Can't wait to see it.
The only reference I could find is here:
http://www.thereeler.com/the_blog/ellen_pages_fame_game.php

Interesting connection :) But, I wasn't thinking this way, more about the mood in film. There isn't love story as in FA, but there is some youth rebellion and emotional connection between characters. In spite of that, I didn't like the end very much. It was kind of different from the rest. As a whole, it's really above the average hollywood level...
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Postby kant1781 » Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:40 am

I saw "Juno" today. A very, very beautiful film. Far from playing in the FÅ cup, so to speak, but definitely a high entry on my all-time favourite list. I absolutely see the point of comparing the two films. Now I'm going to say something and then I'm gonna hide somewhere in the Afghan desert before droopy gets me :)P : If ever there should be an American remake of FÅ (which is not going to happen, and which I definitely do not want to happen), there's one condition that, if fulfilled, might convince me that the probability that this remake is going to be a miserable failure is not 100%, but only around 90%, and that is if Ellen Page should be Agnes. She's the first actress I've seen who I've started to believe could stand up to the task.

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Postby Ian » Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:51 am

Nah, not a chance. She's not even close.

In fact, the whole idea... EWWWWW.

:cry:
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Postby kant1781 » Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:01 am

Pfffff... come on! :wink: I'm talking about a 10% chance. She's worth that - from what I've seen from and read about her, she's extremely promising. But don't worry, I don't expect you to agree - you're just in love, it's pointless to discuss this with you :lol: :wink: .
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Postby Ian » Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:25 am

Oh, don't get me wrong, I quite like Ellen Page. But she ain't no Rebecka. :wink:

True, but I have a terrible fear/hatred of remakes/recasts. They did it to one of my favourite characters/actresses (in fact, my only other 'celebrity crush' :oops: ). I never watched that show again.
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Postby kant1781 » Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:39 am

codyw1 wrote:You don't wanna mess wi' me when I've got a crush. :lol: :wink:


Certainly not! But you were talking about that other actress before... come on, who was she?
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Postby Ian » Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:53 am

Australian actress Amelia Frid, from australian soap Neighbours (you've probably never heard of it over there). To say I had a massive crush on her would be an understatement :roll: . (To tell you the truth, still do. They repeated the show a few years back and I spent like eighteen months getting ALL her eps on tape. OCD, I tell you :lol: )

Anyway, she left the show but two years later they brought back the character... recast. And to add insult to injury, the character was completely remodelled and the actress they got... :x Amelia was not dissimilar to Rebecka in appearance (small, petite, impossibly cute brunette)... and they replaced her with this six-foot gravelly-voiced redhead who looked alarmingly like a man in drag. :( :lol:

Traumatised is not the word. I have nightmares about them doing something similiar to Rebecka in some SML remake/unlikely sequel.

The horror, the horror!

:shock: :lol:
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Postby Ian » Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:12 am

Weirdly, just like Rebecka, Amelia ended up quitting acting to become a Doctor as well.

Which is kind of an odd coincidence! :)
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Postby mpox » Thu Apr 03, 2008 5:37 am

kant1781 wrote:If ever there should be an American remake of FÅ (which is not going to happen, and which I definitely do not want to happen), there's one condition that, if fulfilled, might convince me that the probability that this remake is going to be a miserable failure is not 100%, but only around 90%, and that is if Ellen Page should be Agnes. She's the first actress I've seen who I've started to believe could stand up to the task.

I like Ellen Page and liked Juno OK (though how it won an award for screenwriting with such gems as "swear to blog"... urgh) but this is just a very, very bad idea. There's nothing Hollywood could do to improve this film except invent a time machine and go back in time and give Moodysson better equipment to use.

If you liked Juno though you might also like Saved which has a similar basic theme but was a bit more subversive and one I liked better aside from the end which got a little preachy.

I'd also recommend The Unbelievable Truth and Trust by Hal Hartley. They're pretty old and both probably out of print but they show them occasionally on independent film channels in the US like Sundance or IFC and you can of course find them online.

None of those are really in line with the kind of love story in FÅ though and I'm not sure anyone captures as lifelike a portrayal of their characters as Moodysson does, at least on the two films of his I've seen so far. Not that the ones I listed really try for that.
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Postby kant1781 » Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:34 am

codyw1 wrote:Traumatised is not the word. I have nightmares about them doing something similiar to Rebecka in some SML remake/unlikely sequel.


...sure. Which is why I dared to bring in Page as the first (!) actress in ten years (!) I've seen that I would at least hesitantly consider to even give a chance (!). It could still turn out to be a disaster.

So now I know where your nickname comes from! The first Cody Willis :lol: ! Not bad. (And of course we haven't seen "Neighbours" over here but we sure have heard of it: That's were Minogue and Donovan and Imbruglia and all the other singing Aussies on our radio spring from :lol: .)

mpox wrote:There's nothing Hollywood could do to improve this film except invent a time machine and go back in time and give Moodysson better equipment to use.


No! That's where I disagree: FÅ without the grainy look and the bleached-out colours wouldn't be the film we love. LM chose this documentary-style aesthetics deliberately, it's not that he didn't have decent camera equipment.

Of course I agree that nothing could improve on FÅ. As I said, I don't want a Hollywood remake, God, no! Why should I? I know the original. If there were at least one little thing to say for a remake (against the many, many things against it), then it's that it could draw more people to the original. I think many people who wouldn't normally see Japanese films were drawn to the original "Ring" because of the Naomi Watts movie, and Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire" is better known for the Nicholas Cage/Meg Ryan remake "City of Angels", exactly because the latter is so abysmally bad :wink: .

Thanks a lot for pointing me to the other films! I've repeatedly been pointed to Hartley, it's time I actually get to see some of his work.
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Postby Agnes&Elin Forever! » Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:11 pm

When the film was sold to the American market it was actually praised by the US distributors for having this grainy look and odd colours, they liked this a lot.
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Postby Agnes&Elin Forever! » Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:20 pm

Deep inside maybe you do want to see a remake or even a sequel?

The reason=you would love to see the characters of Agnes and Elin come to life again, even if it's not Alex and Rebecka :wink:

For me I'm content with the original film, but I am very grateful for Peter Svensson's excellent "FÅ 5 Years Later" short story!
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Postby mpox » Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:41 pm

kant1781 wrote:No! That's where I disagree: FÅ without the grainy look and the bleached-out colours wouldn't be the film we love. LM chose this documentary-style aesthetics deliberately, it's not that he didn't have decent camera equipment.

I like the look of the film but if it were shot on something other than 16mm we'd probably have a proper anamorphic release by now and also an easier transition to HD.

Thanks a lot for pointing me to the other films! I've repeatedly been pointed to Hartley, it's time I actually get to see some of his work.

I'd say his films come across more as clever, there isn't really the same sort of emotional attachment with the characters as there is in FÅ or L4E but then I think that is the genius of Moodysson.

Agnes&Elin Forever! wrote:When the film was sold to the American market it was actually praised by the US distributors for having this grainy look and odd colours, they liked this a lot.

Going only by the DVD rip that I have right now I'm a little worried about how it will look on a larger TV screen. I guess it worked out at the cinema on much larger screens so maybe it's just an inherent limitation of DVD trying to reproduce the grain in the film and if it ever gets transferred to HD that can be fixed.

Deep inside maybe you do want to see a remake or even a sequel?

This was to Kant I guess? If this was what Moodysson honestly wanted to do, and the actresses were on board, and the script was as compelling and charming as the original then I'd love to watch it. But... I don't think any of those things are true right now and maybe it's best to leave it to our imaginations. I do wish that Alexandra and Rebecka had been able to do more film work since I thought they were both remarkable, but sometimes actors get so strongly associated with a character that it's hard to break away from it. I think they were both kind of a victim of their own success in FÅ.

Well, OK, now the thread is well and truly derailed. :)
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Postby kant1781 » Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:40 am

Agnes&Elin Forever! wrote:Deep inside maybe you do want to see a remake or even a sequel?


Remake no, sequel yes, and not even "deep inside". People are so much afraid of this thought! No risk, no fun. I have always been outspokenly pro-sequel under the conditions that mpox listed: same director, same scriptwriter, same actresses. So often I've heard, "oh, but the sequel may turn out to be bad and then everything would be destroyed". Nonsense. Now I have one wonderful film. If a hypothetical sequel succeeded, I would have two. If it failed, I'd still have one. Fairly simple math.
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Postby Ian » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:02 am

I would love a sequel too, with Moodyson in charge, and, as goes without saying, with Rebecka and Alexandra. Remake... no!

I also agree that I love the grainy 'look' of the film - it makes it more 'real', somehow. We've been conditioned to think 'slick' is 'superior', and I'm not convinced that's the case, especially for something like this.

Yes, my username, Dave... RUMBLED! :lol:

(How amusing that you can't even escape at least HEARING about that show, even in Germany! :lol: )
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