Avalon
Avalon
| 11 September 2011 (USA)
Avalon Trailers

Janne, a 60 year old party promoter is arranging a nightclub at the annual tennis week in the small coastal town of Båstad, where he also teams up with his older sister Jackie. But an accident turns his life upside down and forced by the people around him, he desperately seeks a way out.

Reviews
Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Johan Asplund The films most compelling component is the main character Janne, really well performed by Johannes Brost, who's haggard face carries the plot in a manner, sending just the right signals of remorse and self destruction. The Director, Axel Petersén, must be the most promising of the Swedish new talents. This movie is not for the Batman fans, who have gone to American films schools. They will miss all the nuances when they are looking for the turning points, according to Laurie Hutzler or John Truby. The filmmaker knows it all but decides to, brave as he is, let open threads remain open, giving the viewer a chance to form his or hers own fantasy outcome and interpretations. The feeling you are left with is a genuine despair and the main characters sincere sadness over the deeds he has been a part of. This is a movie for profound existential contemplation of the lack of empathy that follows a shallow and superficial society. Well done!
tdg-2 As a big fan of Nordic cinema I'm always interested in new names and faces. Well... Axel Petersén is a new name to me and he certainly seems to have at least a few good ideas, but all in all I hope he will choose better friends for his next movie. This one was just boring and pretentious. The protagonists (all of them) lack any credibility, they're only skin deep, and they run around, act and react like headless chickens. There's no way you can relate to anyone of them. Nothing wrong with an experimental approach but the experiment in this movie (for instance the ridiculous 'Avalon' discotheque sequence) is a kind of 'worst of the sixties'. Apart from that the camera-work was the most annoying since the invention of dogma 95.Although some of Pederséns friends seem beyond suspicion... I was surprised to see the name of Hoyte van Hoytema passing by in the 'thanks' region... please listen better to his advice next time. And how in Privatdetektiven Kant's name did Carl Johan De Geer get involved with this? What a waste of real (experimental) talent.About halfway through it suddenly struck me that this was like watching a Dutch movie... now you know where the title of this review comes from.And by the way, the subject 'man goes berserk when confronted with unexpected horror' was handled a lot more plausible and creepy in the 2007 Danish movie 'Hvid Nat'.
johan-364 This film is exactly what Swedish indie movement needs: an experimental, personal, thought provoking, artsy, pretentious, depressing debut. Kudos.Made for close to no funding, the film is well directed in all categories. The director proves that he has a good idea of what he envisioned.That doesn't make it any less depressing or melancholic.Overall the film is a bleak "much ado about nothing" storyline that could have easily been told in a shorter format.David Mamet once said that the worst invention to filmmaking was the steadicam. I think he would include the hand-held camera to that - There were moments when I wanted to slap the focus puller (or director - or both) for not getting the vital parts of the screen sharp.And please stop JUST following the backs of people around. That is poor filmmaking. You can do better.Nonetheless, the style is appropriate. No crowd pleaser exactly, this debut shows promise.Somebody please give this director a real script the next time.
stensson According to reports, the behavior of Swedish nouveau riches in Båstad is out of this world and makes their American and even Russian counterparts seem cultivated. In this environment 60+ Janne starts a nightclub.He's used to his emptiness and doesn't think much about it. This is what life is to him and it always has. Until something happens which forces him to think and feel. And the world is sinking for both Janne and his co-workers. Life is not a draw at all; it is a terrible loss and it obviously has always been.This is a shaking story and Johannes Brost and Peter Carlberg are great, but tremendous is Léonore Ekstrand. This is a script with no hope, but a film by Axel Petersén, which is part of a higher quality for Swedish movies during this last year.