Sif Ruud Movies

In this Swedish black comedy based on a script by popular gay writer and standup-comic Jonas Gardell, the father of a family is inspired to pursue his true destiny after he takes his family to the Pensioniat Oskar and meets Petrus, a handsome handyman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

In this drama, based on a stage play by Agneta Pleijel, an entire family, including grandparents, their children, and the grandchildren (and their lovers, husbands and wives) have gathered to celebrate the family matriarch's birthday. In this dialogue-heavy production, the celebration provides the discontented family members with an opportunity to voice their complaints about their lives and against one another as loudly as possible. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Liv Ullmann plays Dr. Jenny Isakson, a psychiatrist who is taking a vacation while her husband Dr. Erik Isakson (Sven Lindberg) is elsewhere. Haunted by visions of an old woman, Jenny suffers from profound, inexplicable depression. Desperately in search of a escape from her doldrums, she has an affair with married doctor Tomas Jacobi (Erland Josephson). This only serves to spark an attack of hysteria for Jenny. Again visited by hallucinations of the old woman, she attempts suicide. While hovering between life and death, she imagines she sees all the people who've been influential in her life, and rails against them for causing her neuroses. Only while recovering does she learn who the spectral old woman is and why she is undergoing so harrowing an emotional experience. Like his later Scenes From a Marriage, Bergman's Face to Face (Ansikte mot ansikte) originated as a multipart TV series, which was then pared down into a two-hour-plus feature film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This satirical comedy examines the loneliness of men and women from the Swedish perspective and their resolve to find Mr. or Miss Right or Mr. or Miss Right-Now. Couples try to find their soulmates in a series of vignettes and sight gags. Director Tage Danielsson co-wrote the script with Hans Alfredson. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Poking fun all the way at the critical housing shortage in Sweden, this standard comedy looks at the romance of Inga, a young jazz singer (Alice Babs) and Svante, an artist who restores paintings (Sven Lindberg). The two cannot marry because they cannot find an apartment to live in. After Inga goes on a summer tour with a band, Svante gets a job restoring paintings in an old castle. The pretty Baroness Sophie (Yvonne Lombard) finds the young restorer highly attractive, and she certainly has more than enough house for both of them. Will marriage be determined by the availability of a domicile? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Filmed in 1958 and released to US television in 1963, Make Way for Lila is a lively Swedish "mountain" drama. Erika Nemberg plays Lila, who as a foundling was adopted and raised by a Lapland chieftain. Growing to maturity in the frozen Northlands, Lila enjoys an adventuresome existence. Obedient to her adoptive parents, Lila is prepared to settle down and marry the man of their choice--until she falls in love with handsome Joachim Hansen. Hansen turns out to be the better choice when Lila's fiance betrays a sadistic streak. Evocatively photographed by Sven Nykvist, Make Way for Lila was generously distributed by the low-budget American firm of Parade Pictures in the early 1960s, then vanished as if it had never existed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After exploring his disillusionment with religion in his previous films, Ingmar Bergman adopted a humanistic approach for this classic study in isolationism. Legendary Scandinavian director Victor Sjöström stars as Isak Borg, an aging medical professor who reassesses his life while journeying to his former university to receive an honorary degree. Borg travels with his estranged daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) and revisits many of the landmarks of his past, conjuring up memories of his family and of his onetime sweetheart Sara (Bibi Andersson). Returning to the present, he meets a teenage girl who resembles the long-departed Sara. She hitches a ride with the professor and Marianne, as do a ceaselessly bickering married couple. These new characters eventually become intertwined with Borg's hazy flashbacks and fantasies, as the old man recalls the disappointments and disillusionments that have left him cold and guilt-ridden, attributes emphasized when he encounters his equally cold and resentful son. Bookending Borg's odyssey of self-discovery are a series of symbolic images at the beginning of the film (a clock without hands, a man without a face) and a hauntingly beautiful finale, in which professor is beckoned back to the "perfect" world he left behind so many years earlier. This classic art movie remains one of Bergman's most accessible films and one of the most influential European art movies of its generation. Its intense focus on one man's thoughts, regrets, and memories set the tone for innumerable psychological character studies in its wake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eva Dahlbeck carries the dramatic weight of the Swedish Flickan Fran Fjellbyn. Set in Sweden's mountainous northern regions, the story concerns a group of villagers who are plagued with one misfortune after another. At long last, they decide to seek out a better life in America. This little-known effort might prove to be an excellent companion piece to Jan Troell's The Emigrants. The English-language translation of the film's title is Girl From the Mountain Village. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide