IN PARIS - The return of Bo Widerberg - ADALEN '31 (Sweden, 1969)

The beloved cinema the Reflet Medicis on rue Champollion  always seems to deliver one trick. No matter what I might go to see on one or other of its screens I always manage to choose one which involves a lot of stairs down to and up from its subterranean high-ceilinged Cinema 1. The same goes for the nearby Champo, though there are less stairs to traverse. Just saying...

But it was to the Reflet Medicis and its dreaded Cinema 1 that I headed to renew an acquaintance with Bo Widerberg, one time  darling of the international festival and art house circuit. His Elvira Madigan  set the box office alight way back in 1967, the culmination of a series of films all made with the actor Thommy Berggren.

Bo Widerberg may be officially back on the screen judging by the excellent promotional leaflet picked up at the theatre. Five of his films The Baby Carriage, Raven's End, Love 65, Elvira Madigan and Adalen '31 are screening in Paris along with a feature documentary Being Bo Widerberg. The season would seem to be popular given that at a mid-afternoon  session of Adalen '31 there looked like somewhere  between 50 and 60 people in the house. 

The copy of Adalen '31 was superb, apparently a 4K restoration by the Swedish Film Institute. The story of a small town strike during the depression. The bosses at the local industrial plants wanted to reduce wages. The workers took exception and organised a very large protest. They marched towards the plant and there were met by the army who opened up on them with rifles and a machine gun, killing five and wounding many. Not a million miles away from things that still happen today.

Widerberg was an anti-Bergman director. He was dismissive of Bergman's fanciful ruminations on god and was unimpressed by the theatricality. That's about all I'm remembering from the day. Widerberg took his inspiration from Italian neo-realism  and the French New Wave.

The story of the days and weeks of the strike are told through the eyes of one family. Mother, father and three sons, one of whom engages in a summer romance with a visiting girl which leads to lots of complications.

It remains a very gripping tale...and I suspect there would be some continuing fascination for those early films and for the remarkable Thommy Berggren who was in most of them but not Adalen 31. I imagine Widerberg wanted anonymity for his cast in that film. Berggren came back a year or so later to play the title character in the splendid Joe Hill, also restored by the Swedish Film Institute.