I mörkrets bojor

This relatively short film (it is in fact a medium métrage rather than a short) is a real tour de force by Af Klercker and quite one of the most remarkable films of the year.

Ellinor, imprisoned for the murder of her husband (concerning which at this stage we have seen none of the antecedents) has no memory of the events. Years later she recounts to the prison-chaplain the little she does remember - a flashback, but a very special one because it very ably evokes the sense f partial memory and is, in that sense, not a straightforward relation of events in the way flashbacks normally were (and are).

Released from prison on the recommendation of the chaplain, she overhears in bar a gang planning to rob her former house (where her grown-up son now lives). To protect her son, she sends a warning but also uses her credentials as an ex-con to infiltrate the gang.

Once in the house with the burglars, her memory of the events years before, leading up to the murder of her husband, begin to return to her. Once again we have an exceptional flashback, exceptional in two respects, in the first place because it records memory returning rather than memory returned and secondly because there are two parallel actions - the burglary in process and the events recalled in flashback and the interplay between the two is superbly handled.

There is far too much co-incidence involved in the plot but this does not really take away from the virtuosity of the narration and anyone who might be inclined to doubt the importance of Georg af Klercker as a film-maker would be well-advised to watch this gem of a film.