Spring Uje spring

There really is no plot in the movie. It is a slow pondering of a man's and his family new situation learning about his serious disease. That can work, if the characters are interesting and if there is emotional magic between the actors. But there is none, even though the main actors are actually related.

The director and script writer try, in a highly cringe-worthy way, to put forward a lot of political messages which are politically correct in Sweden, making the movie a kind of confirmation bias and feel good for those Swedes that adhere to those ideas. If these political ideas would instead be challenged and more deeply explored, it would give a wholly new depth. Instead, political statements are just lined up and easily dismissed instead of problematizing them, making the movie cringy.

Nota bene: I am a big cineast and have watched a great amounts of movies. Still I have never written a review here. However, the audacity of this movie's claim of being such an original and good movie made me had to write this review for sake of review balance.

It was a potentially good movie, but there were political statements every five minutes which annoyed me to the maximum, even if I don't necessarily disagree with the statements. I just could not watch this properly without getting annoyed.

If you're used to watch mindless Hollywood productions then this movie just isn't for you! It might confront you with some uncomfortable feelings and make you think a little. Sometimes it's refreshing to watch something a little more critical.

Political? Yes, it's political! Thank you! Few movies dare to take part in sensitive subjects and this production is not afraid of exposing them, in this case what most white swedes think but don't say openly about i.e minorities, and so on.

Let's start by getting one thing out of the way; this is no 1/10 (however many films the critic claims to have seen). Film making is all about story telling - and Schyffert/Brandelius certainly do that.

They also venture into a, relatively, new format and at times push the envelope of filmmaking. However... bold and innovative as "Spring Uje, spring" may be - it reaches nowhere near excellence. It's low budget and makes no apologies for being so. But somehow it feels like it's a "dead end concept" - one where no amount of further funding would have delivered a home run.

The end result is quaint, at times slow and often borderline childish. But it is reasonable, and certainly innovative, storytelling. If you can get into the format - it delivers beyond your average Hollywood "standard".

For the cineast it delivers a few novel takes alongside a few more "don't dos". Commendable though the approach is; the shortcomings feel superior in number to the good moments. By all means watch, but it may be an acquired taste - and those with such acquisitions are likely find a few flaws.

This movie is nothing short of amazing. Partially because manages to be many things at once. It's stylistically seminal, It's touching, sad and existential. It's funny, ironic and silly. The music, written and performed by Uje himself, complements the storyline perfectly. I could go on and on about how my (Swedish) generation grew up on this kind of dark and ironic humor. How much it shaped us, etc, etc. But I'll just end this review now by recommending you see it for yourself instead. It's well worth the time.

The only downside is actually that it was too short. Feels like it could have been so much more. That maybe it deserved to be fleshed out a bit more. But hey.. that's just me looking very hard for minuses.