Hammarsberg m.fl.: Maggie/Guldbaggen

A review of a good film can be repeated. That is the case for this documentary that got the Swedish Guldbaggen award as best documentary of 2008, at the ceremoney where most of the prizes very much deserved went to Jan Troell and his exceptional “Maria Larssons Evige Øjeblik”. Back to Maggie:

Hammarsberg, Bergmark & Andersson: “Maggie In Wonderland”. Andersson is Maggie, credited as co-director in this moving documentary about herself, a Kenyan woman, who lives in Malmö on the 15th floor with a balcony full of pigeons.

“It’s me telling you about my life”, Maggie says behind the camera when she points around in her flat that has the look of loneliness and trouble. How did she end up in Sweden – this is not told, what we get to know, we get from the scenes with Maggie behind the camera, or Maggie followed and observed by a cameraperson. She tells us that she suffers from not seeing her son, who is in Kenya. She tells us that she was with a man in this appartment, he was violent and got out. We see her in conversation with a not very understanding school teacher who tells her to stop school because she missed too many lessons. And in a late night street scene, she films while being attacked by someone. She repeats several times that many take her, a black woman, for a prostitute.

It is a film that goes in many directions and I cannot help asking if she has not been offered psychological help. I dont want to think the Swedish public system is so bad that nothing has been done to get out of the trauma. The film indicates nothing of that sort… The ending shows Maggie cleaning up, ready for a new start, a new year. Wishful thinking from the filmmakers side?

Sweden, 2008, 72 mins.