Adalen 31 (1969)

That was an excellent one.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Admirable film.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

What happened that mayday at Marma. The shooting by the military. Five people shot, one of them, a woman, looking. Strike and demonstration was a common and daily event. What was not common and by no means normal where the dead and the wounded. Done by military, ordered from Stockholm. This tragic event transformed Bo Widerberg to a romantic movie. Martin, fishing with his father (Bo Widerbergs son)for the family's strike-supper. Martins older brother Kjell is taught by the wife of the local sawmills manager upper-class knowledge, pronouncing properly 'Renoir'. Enters: the managers daughter Anna for her summer school holiday and her summer love with Kjell, followed by pregnancy and abortion in Stockholm. It is romantic to explore a working-class-girls nudity, romantic to catch fish with a self made fishing rod for supper - also the handling of the imported strikebreakers to secure the deliverance of the American order, forced by the stock exchange. The local police gets help of the army from Stockholm to protect the strikebreakers. These events are good examples what happens when the point of no return is passed, unable to return upwards. When the last possibilities to turn has passed other laws are sett free. It is this what happened at Marma and the movie highlights. Symbolic and symptomatically is Kjell hypnotizing and the slow undressing of the working class girl. In this individual moment breaks his friend, called to take his part of the undressed local class moment. The factories whistles start blowing. One after the other. In concert. The call for general strike beyond Marma. Kjell handles one of the the whistles. Shortly before has Annas father, himself having not known, told Kjell of Annas pregnancy and the abortion in Stockholm. The movie ends that Kjell says to a strike guard that the alternative to strike must be education and knowledge for the working class (Bo Widerberg repeats this in his last movie 'All things fair', 1995. The movie ends that Stig, he has an affair with his teacher, takes with him the dictionaries from her desk, the symbol for knowledge. Bo Widerbergs son plays Stig: "The celebration in church of the schools years with the distribution of the certificates. The teacher in the place of the priest in front of the altar, calling the name/s of the pupil/s. Stig in his weekdays outfit enters, approaching her. We see only parts of his obscene gestures in front of his paralyzed teacher, Viola. He leaves the church, heading for the school. The doors are locked, entering as the working class boy he is by the cellar. He forces the classrooms door and takes the books. The books, the symbol for knowledge that always belonged to the ruling class. The last scene: above the schools entrance are carved in stone the sentence: Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom. In two bags he carries the books: the wisdom that now belongs even to him, the working class Their relation was a wisdom-encounter and a time limited human encounter. It ended when Stig befriended with her husband. Stig is played by the editors/directors son. Some parts are autobiographic.", from my review. 'All things fair', 1995 - 'Ådalen 31, 1969. The same questions by a director, himself being born by working-class-parents. Not the knowledge of the upper class, not to pronounce correct the french word Renoir. The proletarian-knowledge, Their own. Concepted and developed by and for them. One example is the Swedish working class writer Ivar Lo-Johanssons books. As example Troeskel/Threshold; witnessing from his window in Stockholm, the demonstration some days after Marma and how police and military forces acted. It is not to pronounce correct 'Renoir', expressing wisdom, owned and controlled by the upper class. It is to be part of and share knowledge. Accepting an respecting the question to which class you and I belong. In focus Kjell and Annas and by the upper class aborted child. Upper and lower class and this aborted child that belonged neither to them up there or them down here. But both: the linking bridge. But the upper class has, as truth, no interest and the low class accepts this. These thoughts for the social democratic Bo Johansson, Sweden, one of the mourners, having been at their grave.

This movie is loosely based on historic events. These events of 1931 is still romanticized in lore with Swedish left wing groups. This film is aimed at the new wave of communists in the 1960's. The movie was a smash hit with it's target audience. Some claim this to be almost a documentary, using this movie as a revisionist falsification of history. The story told is all out favored by the communist side, with a lot of exaggeration on events and violence. With the communist being the good side fighting and suffering for justice. While the state and the "capitlists" are mostly a one dimensional evil force. The story does not bother to mention that the "evil force" where in reality trying to keep democracy in Sweden and not to become another Sub-Soviet dictatorship. The movie in itself is not that good and the sound is awful, at times I can't make out what is being said.

This is the most overrated swedish film I can think of. On a scale from 1 to 5 I give it 1. Why? Well, let's begin with that the sound is so bad that you sometimes can't hear what the actors say. Alot of the scenes are(or must be, I don't know and I don't care)improvised. The actors keep repeating their lines over and over and over again. You can almost see how frustrating this is for the actors in some scenes.Also the story, besides the story about the shooting, is absurd. The boy that dies at the end, the tragic moment in the movie, is some kind of a rapist with hypnotic skills, so you don't care so much. The only music in this "real" movie comes from a bunch of retarded boys with spoons and buckets for instruments. At the end of the movie, close to the klimax, it's blowhorns and drums from the marching band.If Ådalen was this dull even that day, that must have been the most exiting day of all times, I will never put my foot there.That this movie gets 7.8 grade is not so strange after all. No sane man would ever even think of renting this movie. This is a movie for the insane!

Now this is something you don't see every day! Bo Widerbergs style makes this movie almost documentary in a way. That suits this movie since it's based on a true event.The story is about a small town where the workers go out on strike. The conflict between workers and the factory owners and even between the workers themselves. Seems very simple but oh so good! Very good characters and dialogue! See it if you have the chance!9/10 Movie-Man