(aka "Fucking Åmål")
directed by Lukas Moodysson
Sweden 1998
"Well, quite an impacting film about coming of age,
conformity, growing pains and small town existence all rolled into one cross
between an ABC after-school Special and the Dardenne brothers masterpiece
"Rosetta". In the cinema vérité style Swedish director Moodysson brought us so
close to its characters, not by rising above their cock-eyed undetermined value
system, but instead by accepting us into it. Despite the
over-whelming chattering-class appeal this film has with a lesbian romance and
risqué original title (Fucking Åmål), sometimes a
film just 'works'. It adheres to no visible formula of cinema production, but
strays enough to evoke a feeling of artistic freedom. Essentially the entire
message of the film. The characters are certainly not pleasant, not at this
stage of their lives anyway. They are confused and experimental... all in an
attempt to conform without appearing as conformists. The moral of the story,
which sneaks up on you quite unexpectedly, is to defy pretension and rejoice in
your own persona. Truly a universal concept that we all require reminding of. I
found this a very worthy viewing and strongly recommend it!"
out
of 
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Theatrical Release: October 28th, 1998 - Sweden
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Strand Releasing Home Video - Region 0 - NTSC
| DVD Box Cover |
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CLICK to order from:
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| Distribution | Strand Releasing Home Video Region 0 - NTSC | |
| Runtime | 1:25:39 | |
| Video |
1.85:1.00
Letterboxed WideScreen Average Bitrate: 5.38 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s |
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| Bitrate: |
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| Audio | Swedish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) | |
| Subtitles | English (non-removable) | |
| Features |
Release Information: Studio: Strand Releasing Home Video Aspect Ratio: |
Edition Details: • 5 Trailers from other Strand Releases ( 'Steam: the Turkish Bath', 'Psycho Beach Party', 'Late Bloomers', 'Planetout.com' , 'Edge of Seventeen' ) |
| Comments: |
This DVD suffers from a lot of
technical faux-pas that many DVD aficionados won't be able to forgive:
the image is non-anamorphic, the subtitles are non-removable and the
disc has no Extras worth speaking of.
I saw no combing during forced weave and I think that this DVD is film-sourced. The picture is very grainy, but my suspicions are it was made like this... appearing to be very low budget. The colors and contrast have not been tampered with and this is pretty close to how the film showed in its theatrical presentation. There are many international
editions out for this film onto DVD so one day I will compare the Strand
Releasing edition to another and make a clearer determination of its
adherence to original form. I did not find the lack of production values
deterring from the viewing experience, and in fact may have enhanced it.
The sound was un-remarkable but adequate. The Extras are a bunch of
trailers. A chill goes up my spine envisioning if Criterion had taken
this on, but as far as this DVD goes I give it |
out
of 
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| Distribution | Strand Releasing Home Video Region 0 - NTSC | |
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Gary Tooze
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Many Thanks...
