Docking the Boat (1965)

Sadly Over-hyped

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Sometimes it's hard to dock the boat. In this 1965 movie by Tage Danielsson, featuring his friend Hans Alfredsson, the two in Sweden normally referred to as Hasse&Tage, it becomes the death of those failing to do so.Holiday makers fail to dock a boat. Thats the plot. And it takes a long time for them to fail to dock the boat. Much too long. Inbetween beginning and end of the movie there's nothing else. Just an ongoing failure to dock the boat. Well, Hans Alfredsson eats a banana, but that doesn't count as a plot.Hasse&Tage must have had just about as hard a time to come up with a plot for the movie, as it's hard for the holiday makers to dock the boat. Why this movie is loved by many Swedes, I fail to see. It's simply not funny. It's just slow. Very Swedish, indeed. Maybe that's why it's considered funny in Sweden. It's slow and nothing really happens and at the end everyone dies.

I have watched this picture once before, in my youth, and then I thought it was just boring crap. But as this movie is highly praised by Swedish movie critics, I just decided to give it another chance - in case I would realize its greatness now when I am older, and have more experience of both real life and movies. The result: it was still just boring crap! And absurd, bizarre, stupid and entirely without meaning or message, into the bargain...By the way, I have always thought that both the writers and several of the actors, are greatly over-valued in general. The duo "Hasse & Tage", who both wrote and performed in their variety shows, stand-up comedy, "witty" monologue etc., and wrote several books that were supposed to be comic but were not... But they were, and still are for those generations who still remember them, some kind of holy cows that one was not allowed to criticize. If one did, one got to hear that one did not understand their greatness... So everybody in the 1960:s-1980:s had to pretend that they did! The same goes for the actors. Except for the afore-mentioned Hasse & Tage, who were no more successful as actors than as writers, there are a few other names that got a lot of critical acclaim at this time. For instance: Monica Zetterlund and Birgitta Andersson, both of whom I have always only found cheap and vulgar, and Gösta Ekman junior, who actually only lived on the name of his father Hasse Ekman and his grand-father: the very great, handsome and charismatic actor Gösta Ekman senior. Gösta junior has nothing of Hasse's or Gösta senior's star quality.With this said, maybe one can relate to the plot in this movie just a little, as a Swede. Because we are all brought up on that national-romantic idea of a traditional Midsummer celebration or (as in this movie) cray-fish party in the famous Swedish Archipelago, with all the proper ingredients (such as aquavit, dill, fiddler's folk-music, bare cliffs, waves, rowing-boats and paper moons with lanterns in them... and of course cray-fish) in the company of very good friends. But then of course in reality, most Swedes either never attend this kind of party in the archipelago in their lives, or if they do they will get disappointed from a lot of reasons...In fact, I think the beginning of this movie was alright, because it depicted this disappointment, when a lot of bad things happened so that the Swedish Dream cray-fish party turned into a night-mare instead. The mistake, though, was that the movie was too long, and that the misadventures became more and more unrealistic and absurd. Then you could not relate to it anymore - in fact it soon turned embarrassingly stupid...

A gloriously crazy film, superb acting all over the line and so funny you'll laugh every time you see it. Possibly the last truly funny Swedish movie (sadly). 10 out of 10, and a golden star to Hans Alfredson for his wonderful portrayal of the old gobbledygook-speaking fisherman.

A strange film that dose not look like any other film.It is a very funny comedy about: A group of people arrives by boat to attend a party on a small island. They experience great difficulties while trying to go ashore. All the alcohol for the party is on the boat while the people on the island have all the food, and the only neighbor on the island, Garbo, is not as friendly as one would wish. Hasse Alfredson is the funniest in the film as the angry fisher man and it is impossible to hear what he says.Don´t miss the parody on Rififi! Rating: 4,5 out of 5