Adalen 31 (1969) User Reviews

A true story that goes above TV movie-quality

[gizmomogwai · 7/10 · 18 November 2018]

Ådalen 31, Cannes Grand Prix-winner and Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, is based on a true story, and features the obligatory closing titles that have become way too cliche in today's Hollywood "based on an inspiring true story, give me my Oscars now" line. But Ådalen 31 is a more artistic film than those. Based on an incident in which five strikers were shot and killed, the film is lyrical and a visually beautiful film, definitely rising above TV movie-level.

While the slow pace, aside from some heated argument scenes, generally works in its favour, at times the film does become dull. It's not the most powerful pro-labour statement I've seen, though according to the closing titles this event catapulted the Social Democrats to political dominance. (See I Am Curious Yellow for how that turned out by the late 1960s- not perfect, but by no means the miserable communist dictatorship alt-righters, Fox News hacks and Republican buffoons paint the Nordic countries as).

Pronouncing Renoir

[stephanlinsenhoff · 7/10 · 10 August 2013]

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.

Almost perfect

[Movie-Man · 20 April 2003]

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

Definitely not a waste of time!

[impanse · 9/10 · 18 July 2006]

Dramatized story about strikers, black-foots, saw-mill-owners and the military in a small Swedish town in 1931. The military was sent in to stop the strikers that were marching towards one of the mills. Due to inexperience and nervousness in the commanding officer, the order to fire was given and five people were killed. From then on Swedish military has been forbidden to act against civilians, until this summer, when a new law was passed in Swedish parliament. This law permits the police to ask the military for help in terror-like situations, with commanding chief of police as supreme commander. The film is a fairly true revue of what happened that day in 1931.

Important Oscar nominee

[martinpersson97 · 9/10 · 1 July 2023]

Bo Widerberg is a great example of the provice of swedish filmmaking and the richness of this land's filmography- and along with Ingmar Bergman, Jan Troell and Ruben Östlund to mention a few, one of those who has even made it to the Oscars.

This film is of course very important and showcases a well remembered and tragic event in rather recent swedish history, and how police intervention against agressive strikes can be bound for chaos.

The actors all do an incredible job, and conveys this tale beautifully, and Widerberg's characteristic cinematography, cutting and editing is ever present. It is all around very beautifully put together.

Overall, a very important, well written and eye-opening piece that is very much recommended for any lover of film, and for anyone really!

Some glorious moments, but as a whole not good enough for 110 minutes

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 28 April 2019]

"Ådalen 31" is a Swedish 110-minute movie released back in 1970, so this one has its 50th anniversary soon, maybe it already happened depending on when you read this review. The writer and director is Bo Widerberg and this is definitely one of his more known works. This of course has to do mostly with the awards recognition it received winning the Jury Grand Prize in Cannes and also getting in at the Oscars for Sweden and at the Golden Globes. On both occasions, it lost to the controversial Algerian entry. I cannot say too much about the cast here as honestly, they are from a country and time in which I am simply not too familiar with actors from smaller European countries, but maybe Swedish audiences here will find one or the other familiar face. Then again, this is not really about individual performances, but more about the story. It is not uncommon that Widerberg makes movies that are set quite a while back in time and have a historic context to them combined with the fates of individual characters. Here we have a peaceful demonstration by strikers back in 1931 and how it all escalated and shots were fired. I think Widerberg did a good job in making this very long scene until the escalation work particularly well. The light-in-eyes parts helped in making the situation more severe and creating aggressions. So was the idea of people on horses trying to stop the demonstrators as well as blanks being fired before real bullets were shot and people were killed. tensions kept rising and rising. Unfortunately, this is really only approximately 20 really effective minutes taking place towards the end of the film already. Almost everything before that felt rather forgettable and mediocre to me. The introduction to these killings was way too long in how they presented certain characters that were affected in one way or another by what happened at the end. Oh yeah, the Internationale is of course always fun to listen to as well. let me rush that in now before I forget it eventually. Good parts in these earlier sequences involve the blooking love stories of several young characters. That was at least more interesting than another character breaking his leg near the very beginning. Back to these love stories they did feel a bit awkward though, but still somehow the quality was there. One young male for example tried hypnosis techniques on the girl he was interested in. And as she was more than just interested in him too, she played along. of course, it wasn't working. She acted as if it was working so he would get her naked and touch her because he was apparently too shy to really tell her when in wake state that he likes her. It's literally impossible to fit these scenes into words, you just have to watch them. Or another small part about erogenous zones that was well-depicted too. So when this film is on, it is really on and Widerberg as well as his cast were certainly doing a fine job. However, when it is not it slowly drifts forward and nothing really interesting happens in terms of plot or character development, so maybe it would have been a better idea to keep this movie at 90 minutes max and cut out some of the earlier scenes. In any case with this still being among Widerberg's early works, you can see his talent occasionally and I am not too surprised that he is considered best of the rest from Sweden nowadays by many right behind Bergman obviously, whose status as number 1 from the country hardly anybody would argue against. Sadly I must say when it comes to his Oscar-nominated works I am struggling a bit with his craft as this color film here while I am not a fan at all still impressed me more than his black-and-white father-son story that managed to leave me very unattached. If you care why, feel free to check out my other review as this is not the right place here to go into detail. As for this one here, I think with the events it depicts, it is an okay watch for Swedish film buffs with an interest in history. Everybody else can skip it and they won't be missing much. I give it a thumbs-down as the weak and forgettable is sadly far more frequent than the film's quality moments.

oh my god..

[arg_gubbe · 29 February 2004]

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!