Johan Rabaeus Movies

Nine of Sweden's leading actresses are brought together in this unconventional comedy-drama about a group of actresses awaiting a casting announcement. A major American film producer is looking for a Swedish actress to play the title role in a big-budget remake of the classic Greta Garbo vehicle Queen Christina, and a handful of women who were in talks for the role wait with bated breath for the decision to be declared. Rebecca (Lena Endre), married to hunky matinee idol Ake (Mikael Persbrandt), is spending her 40th birthday waiting for word on the role. Alexandra (Suzanne Reuter) will be shooting a TV commercial, to be directed by Rolf (Brasse Brannstrom). Rolf used to be involved with Cecilia (Marie Richardson), who lately is nearly as well known for the fact that she's pregnant and not identifying the father as she is for her acting. Cecilia appears on a morning chat show with Georgina (Ewa Froling), who used to be in love with Gregor (Peter Haber), Alexandra's current husband. Stella (Helena Bergstrom) is a defiantly out lesbian who is having an affair with Karin (Marika Lagercrantz), the wife of film director Magnus (Rolf Lassgard). Stella also happens to be starring in Magnus' latest project, along with Ake and Molly (Pernilla August). Meanwhile, Git (Gunilla Roor) is in a session with her analyst, trying to come to terms with her feelings about her work, and Evior (Stina Ekblad) is in rehearsal for a musical, and reaching the regrettable conclusion that she can neither dance nor sing. In keeping with the film's tangled onscreen relationships, Helena Bergstrom, who plays a lesbian sleeping with her director's wife, is married to Colin Nutley, Gossip's writer and director. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Sun Axeslsson and her lover, poet Pär Radström, were central figures in Swedish literary life in the middle of the 20th century. This very literate and literary film is based on one of her semi-autobiographical novels, in which she delineates her attempt to establish her own identity in the midst of her relationships with two powerful, even overbearing men, one of them the poet, the other a mathematician. Set in the 1950s in Paris and Stockholm, Mignon (as she is called in the novel) is coming to grips with her own challenges as a writer, and trying not to submerge her life in that of the verbose, egocentric, older, and well-established poet. While on a trip to Paris with Pär (Johan Rabæus), Mignon (Maria Grip) encounters a Chilean man who envelops her in his Latin warmth, but is also a very self-centered fellow. However, all along, her father quietly has backed her efforts at self expression and self-assertion. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Chronicled in this dark, intellectually demanding drama are the devastating effects of a child's death on a Swedish family. The death occurs while the family vacations on the Danish coast. The parents, Torun and Mikael, are accompanied by their two young sons, and Torun's sister, Ellen. One afternoon, Ellen, who is supposedly watching the boys play by the water, falls asleep and awakens to discover that one of the boys has drowned. Now she, as well as Torun and Mikael must pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. Torun, blames Ellen and herself for the death, while Ellen is consumed with guilt. Time passes and Torun and Mikael become uncommunicative. Torun refuses to express her grief, and the lonely Mikael becomes lovers with Ellen, not for affection, but as an expression of their pain and need for comfort. The situation comes to a head when Torun finally learns about the affair. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A sort of Arctic existentialist drama, this Norwegian film was mostly shot in bleak conditions on a frigid island off the northern Scandanavian coast. It is based on a novel about a poet in Oslo in the 1920s, Henrik Larsen (Garb B. Eidsvold). He wants to marry Gertrude (Camilla Martens), but she refuses his proposal. Larsen goes to work for a fur trading company and is assigned to a year in Greenland. At a trapping outpost, he is welcomed rudely by the arrogant, brutish Randbaek (Stellan Skarsgard). Also at the post is the scientist Holm (Bjorn Sundquist). Randbaek , who despises women, constantly ridicules Larsen, stealing his diary and laughing at his affection for Gertrude. Despite being an intellectual, Larsen proves capable of getting more furs than Randbaek. The jealous Randbaek begins to take measures to "even the competition." ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi