"Evil " (its Swedish title, "Ondskan") was nominated in the 'Best Foreign Film' category in the 2003 Oscars, it received the 2004 Golden Goblet Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and in 2003 received the FIPRESCI Prize in the Viareggio EuropaCinema awards.
The film, directed by Mikael Håfström, is based on the 1981 autobiographical novel by Swedish author, Jan Guillou. It is Guillou's coming-of-age account of 16-year-old Erik Ponti and his experience in an elitist Swedish boarding school in the 1950s.
Erik is living in an untenable situation - he has a mother who has no spine, married to a brute of a step-father (played with chilling resolve by actor Johan Rabaeus). The family suffers at the step-father's continuous use of beatings and slaps to the face. His mother's piano playing, "Chopin" to silence the sounds of the belt.
At the beginning of the film, Erik's violent behavior at school is clearly the end result of his beatings from his stepfather, which land him in the headmaster's offices. A long soliloquy by the headmaster ends with his declaration that Erik is 'evil', unredeemable and dismissed from the school altogether.
Academically, Erik is on his very last tether. The truculent, defiant, pretty boy Erik starts to wise up a bit when his mother presents the handwriting on his wall; buck up, and change your rudder boy. Selling off her prized family heirlooms, mother scrapes the money together for a new school.
Enter the "character" of Stjärnsberg, an exclusive boarding school where the rich send their children to become future leaders of Sweden. Erik is now surrounded by entitled students who live by the strict trickle-down coda of honor as Swedish noblemen, who have contempt for the lesser heeled boys whose fathers are labeled 'social democrats'. The underclassmen like Erik are threatened with expulsion if they have any kinds of 'relations' with the female Finnish kitchen staff.
The movie progresses, the hierarchical strata based on class and age unfolds, with the older students dispensing their own reign of terror on the underclassmen. Actor Gustaf Skarsgård turns in a fairly solid performance as Otto Silverhielm, chief tormentor and ascot wearing upperclassman. Though there were times his Silverhielm character inspired "Greg Marmalard" (head nemesis of Delta House) flashbacks from 1978's Animal House.
Erik is having none of this, and has bonded with his intellectual and affluent "roomie" Pierre Tanguy, well played by actor Henrik Lundström. Pierre is an astute observer of the social pecking order and consequences around him, trying to guide Erik through the complex maze of social cues at the school. Pierre presents that because he is cowardly and an intellectual, he figures his time at Stjärnsberg should pass uneventfully, but Erik, who is strapping and a swimmer, will be picked on for sport. Without giving away the entire movie, in the end, Pierre's logic fails him.
Andreas Wilson
Evil is a personal story, revealing tensions in a closed 1950's era society where suppression of personal expression is normal. The air of nobility and wealth supersedes all, and there is a tinge of racial classification and scale of "acceptable" Nordic traits, demonstrated by an anthropology lesson given to Erik, Pierre and their classmates by a teacher, who the students whisper may have Nazi background.
Cinematographer Peter Mokrosinski lenses this movie in well staged shots. Stjärnsberg is replete with beautiful landscaping, rock walls encrusted with lichens, polished patina wood with warm golden light juxtaposing its inhabitant's lack of discernible kindness.
Costume Designer Kersti Vitali expertly dresses the cast in vintage 1950's clothing, and Anna Asp does a great turn as the production designer, dressing the story in such a lovely, serene setting, it is hard to believe what we are watching unfold for Erik.
An interesting side-note, author Jan Guillou continuously fought against social "wrongs" in his home country, most famously through his disclosure of the "IB-affair" in 1973. He suffered for this, after revealing that the Swedish government deployed a CIA-like information bureau to send agents to Eastern Europe and third world countries that were 'hostile to the West'. Author Guillou and another journalist, Peter Bratt were sentenced to 10 months in prison for espionage.
This is not a perfect film. I had issues with the music and score during key scenes, and the flat acting by Finnish scullery maid, Marja, played by Linda Zilliacus, left me cold; there was more chemistry between Erik and Pierre. I am also not a fan of sub-titled movies, which taint the whole experience for me by missing actor's facial cues in scenes as well. Amazon for a June 27th release date. It is now available at AmazonUK . Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
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