NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (August 2023): Criterion have transferred four films by Bo Widerberg to Blu-ray in their New Swedish Cinema boxset. The films are; The Baby Carriage (1963), Raven’s End (1963), Elvira Madigan (1967) and Ådalen 31 (1969.) They are advertised as being "New restorations of all four films". They all look gorgeous in 1080P with a little inherent softness in Elvira Madigan. They are all on, separate, dual-layered Blu-rays with max'ed out bitrates. The Baby Carriage and Raven’s End are in black and white with strong contrast and Elvira Madigan + Ådalen 31 are in color looking bright and un-embellished. There is some beautiful cinematography here and the transfer export pristine visual quality - damage / speckle-free. Hopefully the screen captures below will give an idea of the HD presentations on your system. I was impressed.

NOTE: We have added 155 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Criterion use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original Swedish language for all four films. Most of the films have modest aggression - heaviest in Ådalen 31 - but generally they comes across authentically flat with modest bass response. The Baby Carriage has a score by Jan Johansson (Ingmar Bergman's The Touch) and for Raven’s End was by Giuseppe Torelli (Bella Figura.) For Elvira Madigan we get the alluring music of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 (second movement: Andante) performed by Géza Anda (piano) as the film's 'Main theme' plus use of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons - Summer (first movement: Allegro) and Concerto for Violin and Strings in E major, RV 271 performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker. For Ådalen 31 there is music by Pierre Degeyter (L'Internationale,) Wilfred Burns (Tango Torment,) and even Duke Ellington's Black and Tan Fantasy briefly used.. Criterion offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Criterion Blu-ray offers a new 1/4 hour introduction to director Bo Widerberg by filmmaker Ruben Östlund who discusses his creative collaboration as one of Widerberg’s contemporaries, producer Kalle Boman, and the influence of Widerberg on Swedish cinema. There is also a new 20-minute interview with actor Tommy Berggren who remembers his long friendship and creative collaboration with director Bo Widerberg. Also new is 21-minutes spent with cinematographer Jörgen Persson who discusses director Bo Widerberg and working with him on Elvira Madigan and Ådalen 31. The Boy and the Kite (1962) was Bo Widerberg’s first short film based on his own script, it was co-directed and shot by filmmaker Jan Troell on a 16 mm Paillard camera. Included is a 2-minute introduction by Troell. There are four Swedish television interviews with Widerberg from the 1960s; firstly from television program “Aktuellt,” director Widerberg discusses the national film industry and his debut feature, The Baby Carriage; on the TV show “Filmkrönikan,” director Bo Widerberg and his daughter Nina discuss Raven’s End for about 7-minutes. In September 1967, to coincide with the release of Elvira Madigan, Widerberg was a guest on the Swedish television program “Filmrutan.” For the occasion, a roundtable composed of children quizzed the director about his film. In this press conference, which aired on the television program “Aktuellt” in 1968, labor-union chairman Hjalmar Näsström remembers the demonstrations during the 1931 Ådalen riots, and Widerberg discusses his desire to make a film about the tragic events. It runs less than 5-minutes. Lastly is a minute of 'Behind-the-scenes' footage from the making of Elvira Madigan and the package has a liner notes booklet with an essay by film historian Peter Cowie and excerpts from Widerberg’s 1962 book Vision in Swedish Film ('Visionen i svensk film'.)

Criterion's Bo Widerberg Blu-ray boxset in their New Swedish Cinema package is wonderful. Widerberg died in 1997 of stomach cancer - he was a film director, actor, drama director and novelist. He had a unique vision of cinema and promoted a new wave of realism in, what he felt was, Sweden’s insular film culture. I knew of his Man on the Roof from 1976 - which I found a very intriguing thriller (described by our reviewer Arvid as "The best Swedish police movie ever!".) Of the films here; I particularly enjoyed the bold depiction of youth in 1963's The Baby Carriage and, Elvira Madigan from 1967 - based on the tragedy of the Danish acrobatic 'slackrope dancer' Hedvig Jensen. Raven’s End, about an aspiring working-class writer in Malmö, was also adeptly realized. These are highly impressive world-cinema films that I had never seen before. Criterion's package is very strongly recommended!

Gary Tooze