Per Bifrost & Alexander Rynéus: Once You Shall be One of Those Who Lived Long Ago
They filmed at Malmberget before, more than 10 years ago, “The Home and the Cavity” was the title, and I know them from the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade from 2018, where they showed “Giants and The Morning After”, with Malla Grapengiesser as co-director. I loved that film, where they “turned this seductive portrait of the seemingly Swedish countryside into a funny, lively and playful picture…” as was written in the festival catalogue.
Funny and lively are words you can use again about this film that takes the title from Pär Lagerkvist. But it is a film that takes place at one of the largest iron mines in the world way up North in Sweden, a mine to be evacuated of course with tough consequences for those in the film. Primarily old people have been casted and they are simply great protagonists.
They express emotionally what it means for them to have their homes torn down, but they also accept the situation, as the directors gently, in a slow rhythm, ask us viewers to live with these wonderful people, who have little time left on this earth… there are conversations about death, and afterlife, there is one of course, are both serious and full of fun. Two, younger in this context, talk about whether they want to be buried in a coffin or cremated. The one for cremation, however, fears the oven as it is sooo warm!
Håkan plays the accordeon in the beginning of the film with miners as listeners, a scene full of sorrow and dignity and chapeau for a disappearing profession. Håkan – the film is shot over a period of 3 years – passes away, his friend plays a Finnish song for him at the cemetery, where a son sits next to his mother’s grave, cut to his home or rather the home of his mother, where he still lives. Beautiful – as many small stories are.
The couple we follow from start till end contributes to a hilarious scene towards the end: The municipality, my guess, has had monumental pillars set up on a square, many of them, a monument for what, a piece of art? The couple shake their heads and says to each other – Maybe inspired from Roman times? The couple also – in a scene earlier in the film – visits their apartment empty and waiting to be demolished. The man wants to take a nail from the wall and something to hang towels on for the kitchen, his wife stops him. No nostalgia please.
Nostalgia, however, and Melancholy are feelings that carry the film – and beautiful it is to watch. Happy ending, of course not but as one of the old people say it: Look, we have got nature back, look at the colourful poppies.
Sweden, 93 mins., 2025
