Pernilla August Movies

A family crisis forces a woman to examine parts of her life she'd prefer to forget in this drama from Sweden. Leena (Noomi Rapace) awakes on the morning of the Feast of St. Lucy to grim news -- her mother Aili (Outi Maenpaa) has been hospitalized and her condition is grave. While Leena tries to ignore the bad news, her husband Johan (Ola Rapace) insists that they visit Aili while they still can, and as the couple and their children make the journey South, Leena wrestles with the ugly memories of her childhood. Leena's parents were Finnish immigrants who never escaped the feeling they were outsiders in their new land, and her father treated his anxieties with alcohol. While Leena tried to escape the horrors of life at home by devoting herself to swimming and escaping to the house of a friend, Aili was forced to bear the brunt of his drunken violence, and decades later both still carry emotional scars. Svinalangorna (aka Beyond) marked the directorial debut of Pernilla August, one of Sweden's most respected actresses. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

An artfully segmented study in various forms of love, director Per Fly's six-part miniseries revolves largely around a charismatic Danish theater director as it follows six disparate characters all dealing with different love-related dilemmas. From Jakob's sudden realization that the butterflies in his stomach will eventually take flight to Tanja's painful break-up, Katrin's quest to be noticed, Eva's attempt to reunite her family, Jens' troubled friendship, and Marko's more self-centered quest, everyone involved is about to discover that the only predictable thing about love is it's enduring mystery. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Bjorn Runge's dark drama Mouth to Mouth concerns a family that is weighed down by a history of secrets and bad behavior. Vera (Sofia Westberg) moves out of her parents' house after her father Mats (Peter Andersson) strikes her during a drunken tirade. One ear later she lives in squalor with a boyfriend who sells her body in order to feed their heroin habit. Vera's mother Eva (Marie Richardson) has slipped into a fragile emotional state since her oldest left home, and the two youngest kids are having a difficult time adjusting to their mother's condition. Mats quits drinking cold turkey, and soon comes up with a plan to make up for the damage he's caused, a plan he sets into motion by physically forcing his daughter to return home. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Ole Bornedal directs the drama I Am Dina, based on the novel by Herbjørg Wassmo. In Northern Norway during the 1860s, a little girl named Dina accidentally causes her mother's death. Overcome with grief, her father (Bjørn Floberg) refuses to raise her, leaving her in the care of the household servants. Dina grows up wild and unmanageable, with her only friend being the stable boy, Tomas (Hans Matheson). She summons her mother's ghost and develops a strange fascination with death as well as a passion for living. Family friend Jacob (Gérard Depardieu) encourages Dina's father to hire Lorch (Søren Sætter-Lassen), a tutor who introduces her to the cello. When Dina is old enough (played by Maria Bonnevie), she marries Jacob and moves to Reinsnes, a port he runs with his mother, Karen (Wenche Foss), and his stepsons Niels (Mads Mikkelsen) and Anders (Jørgen Langhelle). Niels doesn't like Dina's wild ways, or the fact that she has taken over accounting duties at Reinsnes. Dina's eccentric tendencies become even stronger, eventually leading Jacob into an accident of his own and bringing Tomas back into her life. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Swedish director Richard Hobert rounds out his series on the seven deadly sins by inviting most of the main characters from his previous films for a big ol' birthday party. Amid the streamers, party favors, and animal balloons, failed rock star and circus performer Mikael (Goran Stangertz) celebrates his 50th birthday with his longtime girlfriend Calli (Camilla Lunden) and their two kids. Mikeal finally sums up the gumption to ask for Calli's hand in marriage. Unfortunately, she is falling in love with some one else. Meanwhile, Ingrid (Lena Endre) from Run for Your Life returns from a charity gig in Africa, half-blinded by a mosquito bite, while Erik (Jakob Eklund), from the same flick, is looking for his kids. A former divorce victim in Where the Rainbow Ends, Tove (Pernilla August) is now a successful businesswoman, while Ralf, of The Hands fame, remains a drunken scumbag. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

In 1977, George Lucas released Star Wars, the ultimate sci-fi popcorn flick-turned-pop-culture myth machine. It quickly became the biggest money-making film of all time and changed the shape of the film industry. After two successful sequels (1980's The Empire Strikes Back and 1983's Return of the Jedi) that extended the story of the first film, Lucas took some time off to produce movies for others, with mixed success. In 1999, Lucas returned to the Star Wars saga with a new approach -- instead of picking up where Return of the Jedi left off, Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace would be the first of a trilogy of stories to trace what happened in the intergalactic saga before the first film began. Here, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is a young apprentice Jedi knight under the tutelage of Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson); Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), who will later father Luke Skywalker and become known as Darth Vader, is just a nine-year-old boy. When the Trade Federation cuts off all routes to the planet Naboo, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are assigned to settle the matter, but when they arrive on Naboo they are brought to Amidala (Natalie Portman), the Naboo queen, by a friendly but opportunistic Gungan named Jar Jar. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan plan to escort Amidala to a meeting of Republic leaders in Coruscant, but trouble with their spacecraft strands them on the planet Tatooine, where Qui-Gon meets Anakin, the slave of a scrap dealer. Qui-Gon is soon convinced that the boy could be the leader the Jedis have been searching for, and he begins bargaining for his freedom and teaching the boy the lessons of the Force. The supporting cast includes Pernilla August as Anakin's mother, Terence Stamp as Chancellor Valorum, and Samuel L. Jackson as Jedi master Mace Windu. Jackson told a reporter before The Phantom Menace's release that the best part about doing the film was that he got to say "May the Force be with you" onscreen. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The sixth in a projected series of seven, Richard Hobert directs this Swedish rock musical about the seven deadly sins. In a desperate attempt at forestalling financial oblivion, Mikael (Goran Stangertz) attempts to stage his semi-autobiographical rock opera in a circus tent in the coastal city of Malmo. His wife Catti (Camilla Lundin) is forced to close her store, and the two move into a trailer park. There they meet Tove (Pernilla August), a victim of a rather ugly divorce, and she and Catti soon become fast friends. Along the way, she also meets Mikael's former friend Rajje (Rolf Lassgard), who offers to front her some money in return for other services. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Based on the novel by the pseudonymous "John W. Grow," this drama is the first feature to examine the unsolved murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was shot in February of 1986 as he walked through the center of Stockholm with his wife. Troubled police officer Roger (Mikael Persbrandt) is on the brink of a breakdown, and his pal Bo (Reine Brynolfsson) gets an order to find out the problem. Roger relates how he almost prevented Palme's murder, and the tale then flashes back to the beginnings of the conspiracy and the killer (Michael Kitchen) in Malta. While the novel fingers a leader in the Swedish business community as the manipulator of the murder, the film evades this point. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Originally made for television and directed by distinguished Swedish actress-turned-director Liv Ullman, this provocative drama is a sequel to director-turned-screenwriter Ingmar Bergman's autobiographical Bille August-directed drama Best Intentions (1992). Returning to their roles of Bergman's parents are actors Pernilla August and Samuel Froler; their discussions are divided into five sections that take place over several years beginning on a Sunday in July, 1925 when young Anna Bergman runs into her old friend and mentor Jacob (Max von Sydow) an aged priest. She is obviously distraught about something and soon confesses to him that she has been cheating on her husband Henrik, also a priest, with yet another man of the cloth named Tomas Egerman (Thomas Hanzon). Jacob suggests she immediately end the affair and inform her husband. Several weeks pass and Anna finally heeds Jacob's advice. When her words finally sink in, Henrik becomes angry and begins grilling her for details. Her further confessions make matters worse. The tale then flashes back to Anna's seduction of Tomas, a situation which reveals truths unspoken by Anna in her confessions. The fourth segment of the story is set several years later. Anna visits the now elderly and frail Jacob. The final discussion jumps back to 1907 when the adolescent Anna first met Jacob and this segment reveals a few more truths about the nature of her friendship with Jacob. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Scripted (but not directed) by Ingmar Bergman, Best Intentions is a multilayered backwards glance at the courtship of Bergman's own parents. Henrik Bergman (Samuel Froler) is a struggling theology student in the year 1909. His intended, Anna Aakerbloom (Pernilla August, who married director Bille August while the film was in progress) is from a well-to-do family. Despite the expected class differences and personality clashes, love-or at least mutual understanding-prevails. But after a harsh, spare few years as the wife of a clergyman, Anna yearns for the more bountiful pleasures of her family home. Bergman writes himself into the proceedings as a mewling infant. The current three-hour theatrical version of Best Intentions (original title: Den Goda Viljan) was simultaneously prepared as a six-hour TV miniseries, which ran in Europe, Scandanavia, and Japan. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi