Bibi Andersson Movies

Three stories of people whose lives have been thrown into chaos come together in this drama from Swedish filmmaker Anders Nilsson. Nina (Bahar Pars) is a teenage girl whose family has recently settled in Sweden from overseas. Nina and her younger sister Layla (Oldoz Javidi) are suddenly at odds with their parents when Nina is accused of becoming too familiar with the boys at her school by chatting with them. When Nina tries to run away from home, it leads to a confrontation with their extended family. Elsewhere, Carina (Lia Boysen) is a respected broadcast journalist who has been hiding a shameful secret - her husband Hakan (Peter Engman) has a violent streak and often beats her. One day, Carina decides she’s had enough and files assault charges against Hakan. Carina’s sister (Annika Hallin) remains supportive through this difficult time, and to her surprise Hakan’s mother (Bibi Andersson) comes to her aid, but Carina soon finds her colleagues are turning their back on her. And finally, Aram (Reuben Sallmander) runs a nightspot where three angry customers who’ve had a run-in with doorman Peter (Per Graffman) return with guns and open fire on the club. Aram offers to cooperate with police in order to put the gunmen behind bars, but he learns the shooters will go to great lengths to keep Aram quiet. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Mans Herngren directs this quiet, sad family comedy about love and jealousy. The film focuses on a trio of sisters: Sophia (Josefin Nilsson), who is expecting a child with her significant other Freddie (Jacob Ericksson); Gina (Marie Richardson), who is married to Roffe (Peter Dalle) and remains childless in spite of their best efforts; and Tina (Cecilia Frode), who has had several kids by larcenous deadbeat Pulver (Peter Wahlbeck). The sisters' mother Solveig (Bibi Andersson) remains an overbearing presence in their lives, continually giving out unwanted advice, while their father Tage (Gosta Ekman) is a withdrawn man who quietly longs for something new. After Sophia gives birth, she accepts a starring role on a TV crime drama, though she tells Freddie that it will not interfere with her child-rearing duties. Soon, however, Sophia's job demands more and more of her time, forcing her to fob off her baby onto her mother and Tina. Meanwhile, Gina seethes with envy over her elder sister's biological productivity, straining her marriage to Roffe. At the same time, Tage suddenly takes up jogging -- to the surprise of everyone. Later, the women of the family discover the reason for his sudden interest in exercise -- he as a much younger mistress. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Those with a special love for Swedish films and who are familiar with actresses Harriet Andersson and Bibi Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom will be most delighted by this documentary interview held at the palatial French retreat of noted late filmmaker Mai Zetterling. The trio of actresses have ostensibly gathered to pay tribute to Zetterling, but during the course of their day also reminisce about their own careers and the illustrious figures, including Ingmar Bergman, they have worked with. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This artistically produced Swedish philosophical drama, filmed in black-and-white, is adapted from Strindberg's 1902 play. Using a combination of Biblical reference, classic mythology, and poetry it depicts God's daughter as she reflects upon the state of humanity. Agnes descends from Heaven to survey earthbound mortals about the cause of their pain and sadness. Initially, Agnes is carefree, but she cannot remain unaffected by the surrounding tragedy and becomes more serious. She ends up marrying an impoverished and dour lawyer. They dwell in a claustrophobic cellar with their new baby. The feature film at the local cinema stars Victoria. A frequent movie-goer tells Agnes of his love for the beautiful actress Victoria. He soon gets to meet her. Agnes then meets a dark poet who warns her that if she continues to wade in the morass of human existence the effects upon her may be permanent. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The prolific and highly celebrated Swedish playwright (August Strindberg (1849-1912) wrote a number of plays which have become standards in the repertory of European theater, including Miss Julie, which in 1950 was made into a classic film by Alf Sjoberg. This movie is a straightforward filming of one of Strindberg's lesser known one-act plays, Fordringsagare. It depicts the complex relationships among three people - - Tekla (Bibi Andersson), a well-known woman novelist, her husband Adolf (Tomas Bolme), a crippled artist, and her former husband Gustav (Keve Hjelm). Gustav is bitter over Tekla's unflattering portrayal of him in one of her novels, and he sets out to destroy her current marriage. The entire film takes place in an almost empty hotel where Tekla and Adolf are residing. The format is a series of two character scenes, in which sometimes the third character spies on the others unseen. Strindberg's dialogue is faithfully and beautifully rendered by the trio of outstanding actors. This is essentially the filmed record of a play, and as such will be highly prized by fans of the playwright. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The Danish/French Babette's Feast is based on a story by Isak Dinesen, also the source of the very different Out of Africa (1985). Stephane Audran plays Babette, a 19th century Parisian political refugee who seeks shelter in a rough Danish coastal town. Philippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martina (Birgitte Federspiel), the elderly daughters of the town's long-dead minister, take Babette in. As revealed in flashback, Philippa and Martina were once beautiful young women (played by Hanne Stensgaard and Vibeke Hastrup), who'd forsaken their chances at romance and fame, taking hollow refuge in religion. Babette holds a secret that may very well allow the older ladies to have a second chance at life. This is one of the great movies about food, but there are way too many surprises in Babette's Feast to allow us to reveal anything else at this point (except that Ingmar Bergman "regulars" Bibi Andersson and Jarl Kulle have significant cameo roles).. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Raoul Wallenberg: A Hero's Story is a perfection-plus TV biopic, scripted by Gerald Green (Holocaust) and directed by Lamont Johnson (who won an Emmy for his efforts). Richard Chamberlain plays Raoul Wallenberg, scion of a well-to-do family of Swedish bankers. Although he is a Christian "Aryan," Wallenberg despises the anti-semitism of the Hitler regime. Not content with merely sitting back and viewing with alarm, Wallenberg vows to help as many Jewish victims of the Nazis as possible. Employed as a diplomat at the Swedish embassy in Budapest during World War II, Wallenberg is responsible for the escape of over 100,000 Hungarian Jews, thereby earning the enmity Nazi functionary Adolph Eichmann (played with the fury of a rabid animal by Kenneth Colley). Alas, Wallenberg himself falls victim to a "purge" of another variety at the end of the war, when he is arrested by the Russians and subsequently vanishes from the face of the Earth. Expensively lensed in England and Europe, Wallenberg: A Hero's Story was originally telecast in two parts on April 8 and 9, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This flawed biographical drama captures the turbulent love affair between the famous Russian mathematician Sonya Kovalevsky (Gunilla Nyroos) and her (unrelated) compatriot Maxim Kovalevsky (Thommy Berggren), while both were teaching at a university in Sweden (she was Sweden's first female professor, from 1883-1891). Although Sonya's brilliant mind could work easily with partial differential equations, she was alternately wildly jealous or angry at Maxim because he insisted they never marry, and in the end, he was to prevail. Sonya died of pneumonia at 41, leaving behind a sad and somewhat neglected daughter, well-interpreted here by Lina Pleijel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A physical attraction between Simone Cambrai (Bibi Andersson) an agent for a French press, and Steiner Carlsen (Bjoern Skagestad) a cover designer for a Norwegian firm turns into a sexual relationship when the two meet at a book fair in Frankfurt. Although they carry on an affair through letters and tapes until they can meet again, they do not seem able to get past their glamorous exteriors to something at a deeper level. When issues arise that call for communication on a more profound basis, the relationship starts to falter. This movie itself functions more on a superficial level, making it only skin deep for many viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A little girl (Ann Smith) daydreams of being a grown-up in this sentimental drama. From her early days at kindergarten, she escapes reality with her fertile imagination. Although her mother (Bibi Andersson), father (Rolf Skoglund), and young grandmother (Annalisa Ericson) are thoughtful and concerned, the little girl feels more comfortable in her own fantasy world. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Perhaps the least seen but most talked about film of Robert Altman's career, Quintet is a somber science fiction tale that takes place after a nuclear holocaust has thrown the world into another Ice Age. A man named Essex (Paul Newman) and his pregnant wife Vivia (Brigitte Fossey) are wandering the desolate, frozen landscape and attempting to find Essex's brother, Francha (Tom Hill). They finally locate him in a frozen city, occupied by a number of apocalyptic survivors who who pass their time playing a mysterious game called "Quintet." No one is able to explain just how it is played, but Grigor (Fernando Rey) appears to act as the referee, and the stakes of the game are unusually high - losing means being thrown out into the snow and devoured by Rottweilers. Francha is soon killed, not as a casualty of Quintet per se, but for playing an assassination game on the side to relieve his own ennui. As 'collateral damage,', Vivia and the rest of Francha's family are soon extinguished as well. Essex is not happy with the way they've been rubbed out, but as he attempts to seek revenge, he is only drawn deeper into the lethal competition of Quintet. While this picture received negative reviews on its initial release, in retrospect it is worth noting that the photography (by Jean Boffety) and production design (by Leon Ericksen) are beautiful and striking, and that the film boasts one of Altman's strongest international casts, including Vittorio Gassman, Nina Van Pallandt, and Bibi Andersson, as befits its European-art-movie ambiance; the influence of the equally opaque, allegorical, game-playing Last Year at Marienbad (1961) is especially strong. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The fourth Airport film may be the silliest of them all, as George Kennedy returns, this time co-piloting with Alain Delon. The plane is on its way to the Moscow Olympics, has a bomb on board, and gets fired upon with missiles that necessitate flying upside-down. A look at the cast list resembles a bad episode of Fantasy Island, but it's always fun to see shameless touches like casting Mercedes McCambridge (Johnny Guitar) as the coach of the Soviet team. If you don't understand the significance of that choice, you may find this film more tedious than laughable, but fans of bad movies will have a field day, as Jimmie Walker, Charo, and -- oddly enough -- Bibi Andersson rub shoulders with high-altitude disaster. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

In the French legal system, a judge-magistrate conducts criminal investigations. In this story, Suzanne Corbier (Annie Girardot) is one such magistrate who is called upon to determine whether Catherine, who has been having an affair with an Englishman, conspired with him to murder her impotent husband, who condoned the affair. When Suzanne comes to a conclusion, she still must deal with the political demands of her office and her superiors. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide