Under the Sun (Cape Town only) deftly merges elements of Swedish art-house cinema and popular entertainment to create a box-office-friendly romantic melodrama.
Based on a short story by English writer HE Bates, Under the Sun was nominated for a 1999 best foreign film Oscar. Bates once wrote that the short story can be anything the author decides it shall be, and Under the Sun director Colin Nutley (British-born but now working in Sweden) honours Bates’s philosophy. He projects the short story across 118 subtly languid, sultry minutes of lush pastoral settings, dignified performances, and an aural backdrop of Celtic-influenced classical sound cues and 1950s rock’n’roll.
A good deal of this movie’s inherent magnetism may be directly attributed to the focused chemistry between Nutley and the absolutely amazing Helena Bergstrom. The pair were distinguished by their 1992 dramatic comedy House of Angels, which is rated as one of Sweden’s all time favourite films. Under the Sun seems to radiate mutual appreciation and understanding.
Bergstrom portrays the captivating Ellen, an elegant, enigmatic middle-class city woman who takes a job advertised in a provincial newspaper to become a housekeeper on a charming farm belonging to a lonely farmer called Olaf, shyly yet convincingly played by veteran Swedish actor Rolf Lassgard. Eric (Johan Widerberg) is Olaf’s Elvis-Presley-wannabe friend, an arrogant, worldly-wise young sailor and woman’s man who earns his rural keep as a gravedigger and confidence trickster.
Suffice it to say their worlds collide. To reveal what transpires would be to ruin the languid suspense and beauty the film sustains. Will Ellen marry Olaf? Will Erick seduce Ellen? To find out, see Under the Sun – it’s a perfectly adept short story on film.