Three Suns

Yet another failure for swedish cinema! There should be no question that Sweden has the most pretentious and arrogant film-makers in the world. They simply don´t make the films people want to see, they make this crap instead. Which would be perfectly alright if part of the films budget didn´t come from tax money, which it does!

This is a sorry mess of a film. The only hint that a quite substantial amount of money (in Swedish terms) has gone into this project is the technical aspects. The photo is not too bad and the music is tolerable. Also the cast are almost all swedish "stars". Unfortunately most of these actors seem to think the movie is as silly as i do, sometimes they come terribly close to making fun of the movie.

And there is actually a lot of things to make fun of. First off the acting is mostly terrible. Only the lead actress (Lena Endre) really seems to take this film seriously. The rest act like they´re out on a masquerade or something, talking like it´s 2003 instead of 1300-something. Also the actors look silly, especially due to the horrible whigs they are wearing throughout the movie.

But most of this could have been forgiven if not for the one most fatal flaw. Namely the total lack of a decent script. Seriously this movie is about nothing. Mostly it´s just people riding back and forth through a desolate landscape. The story is... nothing really. Which ultimately makes this film utterly pointless.

This is truly a 1/10.

Maybe one has to be Swedish to fully appreciate Tre Solar. Understanding the words is not enough. In the making of this film one could have chosen between fantasy and realism. Apparently writer and director Richard Hobert went for realism. The sets, the cast, the acting and the costumes are all convincing enough. But then his heroine Hanna (Endre) acts like a serious anachronism. She is a modern day Swedish woman with none of the taboo or restrain that medieval patriarchate put on women. While the story runs from AD to BC, modern Swedish film-making often deems it necessary to be vulgar and offensive to make a point. Though Hoberts script is mild in this respect (from Swedish point of view), its arrogance may still be enough to cause contempt. To paraphrase a Swedish idiom; "At least two of the three suns come down like pancake." In script and in ambition. There are many really poor films being made. This is not one of them. This one is medieval and plain mediocre... Though we have to acknowledge its potential.

The criticism this film has received is totally unwarranted. One Swedish critic dubbed it the "turkey of the year", which is unnecessarily cruel and absurd. I have seen many other films that I would consider much worse. This leads me to wonder if the critique is against the movie itself or the people who created it.

Tre Solar has an interesting story line. It revolves around how people react to times of crisis and change. It is looks at religion, class, and gender roles. Set in the middle ages, the lead is a strong female character (Hannah). She rescues her husband and several others, on a journey to reunite her family. The story emphasizes through numerous examples that Hannah is unafraid and willing to do anything it takes, even sacrifice herself, for the ones she loves.

I think this was a very ambitious project. The setting (in the Middle Ages) and movement through the film make it a challenge, not to mention the topics it presents. The film is not as smooth as a big budget film. However it is an interesting story and the southern Swedish landscapes create a beautiful setting.

Anyone who only focuses on the wigs, obviously missed the point of this film.

I came here and read the reviews before I watched this on TV last night. After reading the bad reviews here I thought "it can't be that bad surely, it is at least watchable for novelty value... I like nordic films so from that perspective sure I can get something out of it...". I wish I hadn't wasted my time. It is 100 mins of really badly scripted, utterly irrational nonsense about someone who the script writers can't decide how her emotions and actions should resemble each other, in a continuous manner with regards to the plot, and therefore ends up looking ridiculous and being forgettable. (Forgettable other than the fact I will continue to rue wasting 2 hrs of my life).

There is just no point to this movie. And no I don't "not get it", but what's it about? A woman loves her husband? not overly deep. Human relationships? The weakest movie on this topic I have seen for quite a while. A history movie? The era and the plague don't come in to it at all other than excuses to make the ridiculous script lines excusable on the basis of something like "it's set centuries ago, people talked crazily back then". A middle-ages Odyssee? Stick with the ancient Greek one.

I am just glad I can't speak Swedish (and had to read subtitles), when you listen to the talking you can just tell it would be even more embarrassing to listen to it proper than it would be reading the subtitles.

As happens, one's own views on a particular movie will vary the majority received opinion. Most of the time, the reason for an under- or over-rating is comprehensible. In the present case, however, I am at a complete loss as to understand such an extraordinarily low vote. Is this the same movie that I saw? The date, the cast and plot description would indicate that it is. The only reason I can think of is that since the other reviewers currently listed are Swedish, perhaps the majority of ratings are from Swedes also. Is a native Swede, therefore, able to pick out some particular aspect of the film which I was oblivious too - a cultural or linguistic point perhaps? A brief look at the film will be required first. Three Suns is set in Sweden in the Middle Ages. Some of the men have left to join the crusades, and the black death is a recent arrival. The film focuses on one woman who is waiting for news about her husband, Ulf. Upon hearing about his imminent return, she leaves her two children in the care of her father in law and sets out for the coast to meet him there. Without giving away too much of the slender plot, she meets various people, good , bad, generous, selfish, infectious, healthy, along the way.

Generically speaking, then, this is a road movie, the journey of a woman done very much in a woman's terms - and I think this is where so many of the negative reviews stem from, not out of conscious sexism, but from the terms on which this journey is carried out, its tempo, its motivation and its denouement. Without wishing to push a particular stereotype, I think it is possible to comprehend much of the action in terms of a womanly response to certain situations, complete with certain foibles like impatience, vanity, impulsiveness and the occasional lapse of logic. The action makes more sense when seen in this light, with the only caveat being whether a woman would have been permitted to behave in such a manner at such a time in history, or be allowed to express so openly her opinions and attitudes. As for the other characters, I found them utterly believable, especially insofar as superstition and selfishness surge forth when disaster seems imminent.

As for the actors, I thought they did well. I haven't seen many recent Swedish films, so wasn't thinking about how a particular actor or actress usually looked (something which also seems to have irked some reviewers). Nor was I particularly distressed by the wigs, having had the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy to get used to them. The clothing, buildings, carriages, and so on, all seemed authentic enough to my untrained eye. The scenery was lovely to look at, and in my mind was the high point of the film. As for the language, I was reading the subtitles, so the subtleties of older versus modern Swedish were not an issue for me - the language in the subtitles seemed appropriate enough, with no glaring lapses into modern idioms. The dialogue was fairly standard, with occasional humour. There is none of the pondering depth found in, say 'The Seventh Seal', set in a similar time and place, but there is enough to occupy the viewer in the simple human interactions. The music was standard, but pleasant, complimenting the action well.

For me, this was, at face value, an enjoyable film. It was hardly earth-shatteringly original, but was competently done, with the interesting setting and attractive photography making up for a relatively uncomplicated plot, and some unusualness regarding character actions and motivations, which I've examined in this review already. I'm glad I took a risk on this one, in spite of its incomprehensibly poor rating.