491 (movie)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | 491 |
| Original title | 491 |
| Country of production | Sweden |
| original language | Swedish |
| Publishing year | 1964 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Vilgot Sjoman |
| script | Lars Görling based on his novel of the same name |
| production | Lars-Owe Carlberg |
| music | Georg Riedel |
| camera | Gunnar Fischer |
| cut | Lennart Wallén |
| occupation | |
| |
491 is a 1963 Swedish drama directed by Vilgot Sjöman with young amateur actors in the leading roles. "The stocky, red-bearded worker's son Sjöman has staged the sexual debauchery of his main characters for a purposeful polemical purpose: 491 questions the methods used in the Swedish welfare state to rehabilitate juveniles who have committed criminal offenses."
action
At the center of the action are six socially neglected young people from Stockholm who live in a district that can be described as a social hotspot. Several of the boys, Nisse, Jingis, Egon, Pyret, Fisken and Slaktarn, already have a criminal record. In order to save them from prison, a social reintegration project is started. The young and rather shy social worker Krister is appointed project manager, at whose side the six bullies are quartered in a specially set up home, the "Pension Sachlichkeit". In this somewhat dilapidated villa, the young criminals should be prepared for life in society again and rehabilitated accordingly.
For control purposes, Nisse, Jingis, Egon, Pyret, Fisken and Slaktarn have to visit the headquarters of the municipal welfare authority every day. But the sometimes desperate attempts to make the boys socially acceptable again hardly bear any fruit. Once a pastor visits them, once they go to a theater performance - but nothing leaves an effect that gives hope for improvement. The experiment, guided by a liberal approach typical of Sweden, is in danger of failing miserably. Nisse is particularly hard hit; he is sexually abused by the gay youth inspector in his office. The other brats beat up, drink, swear, steal and smuggle without even the slightest hint of improvement.
On board a German freighter lying in the port of Stockholm, on which they want to buy schnapps, the boys get to know the neglected girl Steva. This is half-naked, raped by a sailor and then vomits over the railing. Steva follows the boys and moves in with them in the "Pension Sachlichkeit". Steva turns out to be a little bitch and irritates the boys until they attack them and set the German shepherd Ray on them with sodomite intent. Pedagogue Krister now finally shows himself to be completely overwhelmed. At the moment of the looming disaster, the police finally arrive. During the brawl that followed, the youngest of the hard-to-educate fell out of the window of the youth home and died in the process.
Production notes
491 was shot in 1963 and premiered on March 16, 1964. In Germany, the strip started on August 28, 1964.
The film was hotly debated among the Swedish public when it was screened in 1964. Some scenes (around 84 seconds playing time) had to be removed on the instructions of the censorship authority. Previously, 491 had been completely banned, the first total ban since film censorship was introduced in Sweden in 1914. The film also sparked a heated censorship debate in Germany, and the showing of 491 was temporarily banned in Bavaria . After massive cuts - in Sweden the film was 101 minutes long, in Germany only 88 - it could also be shown in the Federal Republic.
The film structures were designed by Per Axel Lundgren .
The film title
The title is based on the Gospel of Matthew , according to which people should be forgiven seven times seventy times. The 491st misconduct thus becomes an unforgivable offense.
criticism
"A report soaked in vitriol."
"Church threats meant that the roughly shot shock film by Ingmar Bergman's pupil Vilgot Sjöman (SPIEGEL 15/1964), which had already been cut in Sweden, cut the German cinema audience again and changed it to 'just a skeleton' (according to the Catholic film - Chef's representative). Sjöman shows six sex-feral Stockholm welfare children who, as objects of a liberal educational experiment, are to be trained in freedom. The experiment fails. Deprived of the extreme gaudiness of the original, the film appears pessimistic instead of, as planned, as a social provocation. "
“Grotesquely, ' 491 ' even demonstrates a reactionary tendency. The film doesn’t teach that one should watch every outgrowth and accept every adolescent lack of control, but rather it says: There is nothing to be done with false mildness. Healthy, if necessary unpopular strictness helps high-spirited, neglected (by no means material needy) boys and girls. "
“A much-discussed film, which probably caused quite a stir because of its drastic sexual scenes than because of its quality. He shows the educators ... as caricatures, the boys as clichés. "
“The shocking portrayal of a failed parenting test in Stockholm, conceived (based on the novel of a former welfare child) as an attack on social welfare methods in the welfare state of Sweden. (…) An extremely drastic film, in which the line between educational shock and display for a purpose in itself is difficult to make out. The toned down and reshaped German rental version refers to an incredibly tendentious speculative film, at least in the second part. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ cit. after Der Spiegel , No. 15/1964, p. 96
- ↑ “Sinful Brothers” in Der Spiegel No. 15/1964
- ↑ 491 in the Lexicon of International Films
Web links
- Background report in Der Spiegel from April 8, 1964
- Report in Die Zeit
- 491 in the Internet Movie Database (English)