Viveka Seldahl Movies

After a number of big-budget international projects, writer and director Bille August scaled himself back with this intimate story about two people who find both love and tragedy late in life. Martin (Sven Wolter) is a well-known and highly respected classical composer and conductor in his early sixties. While rehearsing for a concert, Martin becomes aquatinted with Barbara (Viveka Seldahl), the orchestra's concertmaster who is ten years his junior. While both Martin and Barbara are married, there is a strong mutual attraction between them, and after a brief affair they decide to divorce their respective mates and get married. Despite the objections of their children (all of whom are fully grown), Martin and Barbara wed, settling into a happy and productive relationship in Sweden. But five years later, while Barbara assists Martin with his latest project, she notices his memory seems to be failing him, and his personality is beginning to shift. A doctor diagnoses Martin's condition as the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and as his condition worsens, Martin finds it more and more difficult to write the music that means so much to him. Barbara, on the other hand, wants to help her husband, but as his memory fades and his confidence goes with it, she sees the brilliant artist she fell in love with slipping away, and she's not sure how she feels about the increasingly feeble stranger who has taken his place. En Sang For Martin was based on the novel Boken om E by Ulla Isaksson. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In Lusten till ett liv (aka Yearning for a Life, writer/director Christer Engberg tells a story of a typical Swedish town going through tough changes in the 1970s. In a community facing economic hardship with the closing of a factory that's the city's biggest employer, a handful of local teenagers decide to form a rock band. The group's lead singer has personality and a great voice, but offstage he has problems: he lacks responsibility, he's developing a drug problem, and he ends up alienating his bandmates as well as his closest friends. Former rock musician Engberg certainly knows the material of this drama, which was shown at the 1999 Gothenburg Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A group of messianic pilgrims abandon their native Sweden and emigrate to Palestine. This fact-based episodic Swedish drama looks at the events leading up to the trek and the immigrants' experiences after they arrive in the holy land. The story begins in Sweden and is introduced by the death of Big Ingmar, the leader of a small farming community. Shortly thereafter, his eldest daughter Karin sends Ingmar's namesake son to be raised by another family so she can control the family farm. Years pass and Ingmar grows up to fall in love with his beauteous "step-sister" Gertrud. But the romance never fully blooms, for Ingmar must leave to earn the money he needs to buy his father's farm back from Karin. About this time, the local village is plagued by a series of ominous disasters that begin with Karin's sudden paralysis. In the midst of the ensuing superstition and chaos, a charismatic, hellfire-and-brimstone preacher shows up, and some family members begin converting to his cause. Karin becomes a true follower when the preacher prays and she is "miraculously" healed. Ingmar eventually returns to find a very different village. With not enough money to buy the farm, he marries a wealthy young woman. Broken-hearted Gertrud immediately joins the preacher's cult and decides to follow him to Palestine to await Christ's Second Coming. Three months after she leaves, a recently divorced Ingmar arrives in Palestine to try to win her back. That is but one story line among many that transpire as the pilgrims struggle with survival in their strange new homeland. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The primary two loves of Alfred Nobel's life provide the basis of this Swedish biopic. Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite and the founder of the prestigious Nobel Prize, which he created as a way to assuage his conscience after unleashing such a destructive force upon the world. One of Nobel's lovers was Bertha von Suttner, an Austrian woman he loved, but never made love to. The other was the adulterous Sophie Hess with whom he had a passionate affair. Also examined are some of the things leading up to Nobel's inventions. The big-budget story was shot at many scenic locations in Sweden, France and Austria. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In order to try and patch up their failing marriage, Annika (Lena Olin) and Klas (Stellan Skarsgard) have purchased the "S/Y Gladjen," a shipwrecked yacht, at bargain basement prices, and have succeeded in fixing it up. They intend to take a year off from their lives and sail around the world in it, repairing the damage to their union that was caused by the death of their child. In the course of getting ready to sail, Annika discovers that the yacht's previous owners had suffered a similar loss, and begins to investigate. This mystery is based on the novel S/Y Gladjen by Inger Alfven. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi