Sweden has given me such great inspiration

During the past few months, I've come to realize just how much I really do enjoy Swedish entertainment.

Music:

One of my favorite songs of all time comes from Peter Bjorn and John with their 2006 hit single 'Young Folks'. It was off of their album, Writer's Block. It is a very catchy tune and if I could whistle the tune, I would! In fact, the whistling in the song did remind me of the 'oriental rift'. The female vocals were provided by Victoria Bergsman.

Literature:

In recent years, it's a shame that Stieg Larsson is no longer alive to see just how his Millennium series has caught on like wildfire. 'The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo,' 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' and 'The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet's Nest.' The series follows the dark journey of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. It deals with very dark subjects such as rape and incest. Larsson had witnessed a gang rape as a teenager and it affected him for the rest of his life and may have fueled his inspiration for the Lisbeth character.

Cinema:

Larsson's Millennium series also gave rise to the trilogy of movies. They captured the dark atmosphere of the stories quite well. But my favorite Swedish movie is actually the 2008 horror film Let the Right One In, which is based off of the 2004 John Ajvide Lindqvist novel by the same name. It is a vampire movie that is basically what Twilight is not. It is a love story, but simplified between a boy and who he thinks is a girl. It is innocent yet harsh. And I was in a complete state of awe by the end of the movie. The U.S. remake Let Me In was good, but I still preferred the original.

The past:

One can't forget about the past with Sweden. Seven Nobel Prizes in Literature came from Sweden. Cinematic artist/filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, actresses Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman all made their impact in movies. And who could forget the 4th best selling musical act in pop music...Abba. The band was before my time, and I still enjoy a little Dancing Queen from time to time.

In conclusion, I just wanted to share my recent love of Sweden and everything this great nation has given the world.

Review: The Battle of Algiers

I've recently watched the 1966 Italian war movie 'The Battle of Algiers', which recreated the events of Algerian War (1954-1962), which was the war between the occupying French forces and the Algerian FLN. It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo and the cast was made up of mainly unknown actors and actresses, many of the extras were Algerians. The film starts in the Casbah during November 1954 with a great introduction to Ali la Pointe, a convicted criminal who would become a guerilla leader for the FLN. It would display the first signs of resistance as guerillas murdered French police officers in broad daylight and women hid bombs in their purses and left them in public places. I'll admit, for a 1966 movie, these acts shocked me, and I'm certain it shocked the audiences decades ago. After the chaotic scenes of terrorism, the French call in the Paratroopers, who are led by a man who had seen action during World War II, Indochina and the Suez Canal.

The Paratroopers dominate the Casbah, going door-to-door, hunting for guerillas, using methods of torture such as electrocution and burning, which again, I'm sure stunned the original audience. What was omitted (perhaps for production costs) were the so-called Death Flights, where paratroopers took the arrested out to sea by helicopter, weighted them down and threw them into the water. The main story would end when the Paratroopers were able to hunt the guerillas down to the last man. However, 2 years later, the new uprising began and this time, the French could not keep this resistance down. The film ended where the French asked over a loudspeaker, what is that the Algerians wanted. The answer...to paraphrase...'Independence...Pride...Freedom!'

It was a beautiful resistance film, even if the rebels were part of a group we do not idolize. Speaking of which, it became hard to identify who the heroes and who the villains were, but I think that's where Pontecorvo was taking us...to show that in these circumstances, there are clear cut definitions of heroes and villains.

Today, another North African nation is undergoing its own rebellion...Libya. And perhaps one day, we may get another critically acclaimed film about their uprising.

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