All Things Fair (1995)

Wonderful character development!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Bo Widerbergs last movie All Things fair, the male lead is the directors son. It is the love fall between Stig, 15 and his teacher, Viola 37. 1942 in the Swedish town Malmö. The 1955-movie with the same theme is based on a true story ... while in the shadow of the moralizing the love affair between a students with the principals wife develops: "Så tuktas kärleken" with the yesterday-famous (even A Hitchcock heard of) the blonde Karin Ekelund. Significant for Bo Widerbergs movie is the students search for knowledge. He is in the classroom, searching for a word in the schools dictionaries. Enters the teacher, asking what he does and telling him the meaning of the word he looks for: middling/mediocre. He reads: "Latin, mediocre, person of moderate ability, work of no particular value." It is the beginning of their relationship: working class boy vs middle class woman. Primary not a love affair between them but she as the door to knowledge the working class is forbidden to have. The teachers guiding part, as member of the upper class, owns the power of knowledge. The end of their love story is not that her husband discovers their affair (he accepts what is going on) but the friendship between her husband and her lover that triggers her jealousy and ends the affair between upper and working class: doomed from its start. Who was used and who ...? She uses her power against the powerless. She tells the schools principal that Stig has to repeat his year and the principal tells Stig after the decision: "we are all in agreement that you should repeat the third year next term." The celebration in church of the schools years with the distribution of the certificates. The teacher in the place of the priest in front of the altar, calling the name/s of the pupil/s. Stig in his weekdays outfit enters, approaching her. We see only parts of his obscene gestures in front of his paralyzed teacher, Viola. He leaves the church, heading for the school. The doors are locked, entering as the working class boy he is by the cellar. He forces the classrooms door and takes the books. The books, the symbol for knowledge that always belonged to the ruling class. The last scene: above the schools entrance are carved in stone the sentence: Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom. In two bags he carries the books: the wisdom that now belongs even to him, the working class Their relation was a wisdom-encounter and a time limited human encounter. It ended when Stig befriended with her husband. Stig is played by the editors/directors son. Some parts are autobiographic.

This was to be director Widerberg's last movie. A sweet family farewell, since his son played the lead in it. What his last words may be, as expressed in this movie, though, is hard to say. There is no clear moral in it, for which I am thankful, but a somewhat distressing observation about love: it is a close neighbor to hate, and it will not leave without vengeance.The love affair between the school teacher and the teenage student is interesting when it starts to break up, but its beginning is too swiftly dealt with to make any sense, and its joyous, lustful phase is without depth. Only when things go awry, does the story get interesting, and the actors get to excel in their art.The title is from a psalm, which is traditionally sung by students when they leave school for the summer break - or for good. It's a hymn to the summer and its luscious splendor - therefore, a lust of another kind, than the carnal one the movie deals with. Some Widerberg irony, no doubt.Using his son as the student in the movie, was not that good an idea, although Johan Widerberg has a rare charisma on screen, and his own odd talent in acting. His father seems not to have been able to treat his son with the same merciless exploitation, as he was quite apt to do with other actors. So, the student is left hanging in a kind of vacuum, as if empty of his own intentions and conflicts. Things happen to him, as if he had nothing to do with them.In this type of drama, it is important that the characters are stripped naked - well, mainly their souls, but bodies too, if need be. Widerberg manages the latter with his son, briefly, but not at all the former. When wanting to protect his son, he actually abandons him - for no other reason than the inhibitions in his own fatherhood. Johan, on the other hand, seems to be prepared to do any sacrifice necessary, to make the movie work.I could be wrong. But the impression remains: the student's story never really gets to be told, because he is not allowed to be present, completely.

I may write one or more spoilers below.This film is absolutely superb. I have watched literally thousands of films, and this is one of the very best, if not *the* best film I have ever seen. But out of 656 votes for this film that have appeared on this site at the time of writing, only 135 of them are a 10 (out of 10). (I voted for this film and gave it a 10 of course.) So evidently a lot of people disagree with me. Why is this? I don't know, but I suspect strongly the fact that this film is not in English and has no actor or actress in it who is a star in the English-speaking world is part of the answer.Anyway, on to why this film is perhaps the greatest of all time. Well, first, it has an absolutely enthralling, extremely enjoyable, absorbing, logical, and coherent plot in which one totally loses oneself. But a lot of films have that. It also has completely believable, realistic, three-dimensional, fully fleshed-out, fascinating, irresistible, absolutely delicious characters of great psychological depth who the viewer really cares about and whose actions, thoughts, feelings, and situations one can strongly sympathise and deeply identify with. Other films have that. It is filmed in a truly magnificent, highly technically-proficient, beautiful, elegant, and satisfying style. But several other films have that too. It has an important, fundamental, universal and very human theme. A few other films, perhaps, have that as well. But this film, triumphantly, also has superlative direction and world-beating actors and actresses who are completely at ease and comfortable with their roles which they seem to slip into effortlessly, and whose performances have never been bettered and are all the more remarkable considering the age of some of them. And, as if all this were not enough, this film is at all times open, innocent, honest, and consistent, and at no times hackneyed, cowardly, patronising, or self-censoring. I'm not sure any other film has all these qualities in addition to all of the ones aforementioned.This is not like most films, which, however believable and realistic, are still obviously films: staged productions with endings already pre-set from the beginning and people who aren't living out their own real lives but are instead acting out the imaginary lives of fictitious personalities. No, this, more than being merely entirely believable and realistic, is moreover like a slice of real life actually being carried out as you are watching it by real people who are living out their own real lives.This film is, in short, an absolute must-see, especially, perhaps, for youngsters. It goes to prove, once and for all, that, contrary to what many people seem to think, there is more to non-English-language films than just Seven Samurai. Moreover, it is yet another example that demonstrates the fact that English-language films are, in general, vastly inferior, and that those lazy, nationalistic, tunnel-visioned viewers who refuse to read subtitles are missing out on a veritable Babette's Feast of viewing pleasure, and may be watching their films in widescreen, but are choosing them while wearing blinkers.----------------Comments on the above review are always appreciated, especially those from people who have seen this film.

It's a very beautiful movie. Beautiful actor, beautiful actress and very beautiful and exquisite music. I've seen it for many times since I have its video. Widerberg has made me think that I have to see more Swedish movies. But, is there any which is better?