Ömheten

The film is set in the small mining town of Kiruna in northern Sweden, as it traces the lives of several young people struggling to come to terms with adulthood. In both reality and Norlin's fiction, Kiruna stands on unstable ground and must be relocated, but no one knows quite when or where, resulting the town folk being in uncertainty. Although it mainly revolves around two teenagers, Marcus and Daniel, "Broken Hill Blues" is confusingly awash in fairly identical-looking slim, blond youths who are seldom addressed by name. Indeed, Norlin's characters rarely speak at all, as the film progresses. But Marcus' is stuck in his single-minded desire to become a mechanic, he later has to work in the mines where his father died and his older brother now toils. Daniel, on the other hand, seems to do nothing outside school other than hang out with a gang of older thugs. Introverted and usually half-hidden in a hoodie, Daniel struggles to embrace their culture of violence, his one bloodthirsty act leaving him shaken and bereft. In this film everything is secondary to the striking landscape captured through beautiful cinematography, While miners work in the darkness below, the youths above drive around in aimless circles or climb mountains in aimless walkabouts. That said, Norlin should in future concentrate her screen writing and editing as this dull look at young people coping with small town life barely has any plot or rhythm to speak off due to the abrupt chapters of youths and sudden story changes that led to minimal understanding of a serious subject.