“Rainman” comes with hopes of Hundred-year-old laughter and Ove tears.
It’s a confusing starting point for what is actually a slightly melancholic film about being lonely and calculated and perhaps above all a man.
That’s how good the “Rainman” is
Genre: Drama (Sweden).
By: Hannes Holm.
With: Robert Gustafsson, Jonas Karlsson, Emelia Sallhag, Simon Gregor Carlsson, Karin Lithman, Sara Shirpey.
Length: 1:49.
From: 7 years.
Premiere: In cinemas 25/12.
Sad things happen, and this year Swedish filmmakers have felt that what we most need is to laugh them off. Whether it’s about divorce (“There’s something wrong”), mental illness (“The dance club”) or dictatorship (“Eagles of the republic”).
Even “The Rain Man” fits into that trend, but also offers an understanding look at the self-absorbed culture man.
Maybe even a sign of the times, considering “Sentimental value” and “Jay Kelly”.
Now Robert Gustafsson’s rainman (also called Lill-Ingmar) is a man of culture of a more local character. He was once the director of the county theater in Kalmar. Then he made a little too strange performances and was fired.
Now retired, his wife has recently passed away, and he spends his days alone – in the garden or with old VHS tapes of his own performances.
It’s mildly funny, partly because Gustafsson’s tormented face has become a Pavlovian stimulus for laughter.
But Ingmar is rather a tragicomic, and fairly everyday figure, who is self-absorbed and continues to tinker with his projects. He doesn’t really know how to talk to the adult daughter. When the grandson calls, he doesn’t have time.
That together with the neighbor (a kind besserwisser played by Jonas Karlsson) convince the municipal politicians that he can actually create rain in the summer drought, is more important. Whether he actually can is open to interpretation. But the politicians do not say no to what is both a climate quick fix and a media stunt.
They hope for magic. Me too. But the emotional redemption doesn’t really want to appear.
It won’t be magical, no aha experience, but mostly convivial.
Among other things, because here are two tracks that don’t quite marry each other: A traditional Swedish comedy in Småland that could have become perhaps a summer theater, and a quieter story, where the sweat is lacquered in saffron-yellow images.
But the photo is nice and the actors good.
Emelia Sallhag is a find as the daughter, and Jonas Karlsson has, as it were, draped himself in saucy Småland, which you can laugh at or think is over the top.
The latter has also written the book at the bottom. From which Hannes Holm made a “A man named Ove”-related film which in its best moments reminds me most of such an old Slas film, like “Vem älskar Yngve-Frej?” (1973) where Janne “Loffe” Carlsson grabs hold of Allan Edwall and lies about an ancient memory to break the loneliness in the forest.
It’s languishing, you could say. In a familiar comfort, without real miracles.
