Sweden, 2000
I remember seeing this when it came out, when I was 17. I had recently got glasses for short-sightedness, but had forgotten them on that particular evening, which meant that I watched the entirety of this film squinting - but not a full squint, a semi-squint - trying to read the subtitles. Luckily there aren't many.
From that first watch 11 years ago, all I remember really is the general aspect of apocalypse and humour, and the scene where a mountain-top of dignitaries push a gifted child off a cliff.
Watching it now, I feel more aware of it fitting in to a particularly European existential sense, maybe, or a dark/black humour, the sort that connects Bunuel and Monty Python with the grey landscapes of Scandinavian winters. It's much more explicitly political than I remember, although I do remember the large proportion of shots of middle-aged men sat pondering, in their pants and vest, on the edge of their bed, in the middle of the night, their bedside lamp on, their wife asleep.
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