A slice of Swedish social satire with an cult exploitation feel to it. Stenansiktet (The Stone Face) begins with a gang of striking looking youths - part Clockwork Orange, part Village Of The Damned, part Bay City Rollers - loitering around the neighbourhood, harassing shoppers, residents, drunks, and a man called Harry whilst driving his car. Harry's son lived in the same neighbourhood, and his infant son had died falling from a swing onto the hard concrete surface of the playground, further causing his wife to have a breakdown. Harry sees he can use the youths, the children of the concrete jungle, to swipe back at it's creators.
Much has been written in the last decade of Sweden's 'vulnerable areas' - peripheral neighbourhoods of low socioeconomical status, with largely migrant populations, blighted by gang activity, criminality and religious fundamentialism. Most of these neighbourhoods were constructed as part of the Million Programme in the 1960s to house the large numbers moving from the countryside looking for work, as well as from inner-Stockholm, to the rapidly industrialising cities. The idea was to create planned communities with modern housing and access to services and surely appeared idyllic in the planners office. However, housing largely consisted of monotonous concrete apartment blocks, with bored parents sat watching TV, whilst bored kids with few facilities caused havoc. Those that had the opportunity to leave, did, ultimately leaving a legacy of isolated and segregated low-income neighbourhoods.
And it's the planners of these neighbourhoods which Harry decides to set the kids upon. Filmed in the Stockholm neighbourhood of Skärholmen, we see them catching up with the planners (who naturally live in bigger houses elsewhere) and dealing with them in rather unique ways.
It's a film which should entertain exploitation/cult fans somewhat, the menacing visual appearance of the gang being quite striking, though it feels more relevant as a piece of social documentation. We see the barely finished, but already rapidly crumbling 'idyllic' suburb, the residents moving out and shops closing, also the scarred landscape of the old city of Stockholm as the Norrmalm district was being demolished for modern office blocks. The one time that we do see the youths having rather more wholesome fun is when they're taken out to a country weekend home by Harry and his partner Eva. Maybe those kids were better off with forests and lakes than steps and ramps.
Stenansiktet is in many ways a revenge film, not against the usual street scum, but urban planners. If you ever wished those that created the concrete jungles, and replaced cosy historic streets with dull glass and steel blocks, then this will give a bit of enjoyment.
