The Swedish movie that coudln’t

Arn is the most expensive Swedish film ever. It opened on Christmas day, and it pulled in over 160-thousand spectators in the first two days. But can all these movie goers be wrong?  One critic doesn’t think this knight in shining armour will win the box office battle.

One of the most successful Swedish writers, Jan Guillou, wrote a bestselling trilogy about a templar knight, Arn, his childhood, his knighthood and his love to a maiden, Cecilia. And now the book has become a film with the whole spectre of visual delights that history would offer: the passion of religion, great battles of the holly war, maidens in nunneries and the wide exotic landscapes of Arn's native West Gothia.  Roger Wilson, a film critic from the culture department at the Swedish Radio has seen the film and was not impressed: 

“What’s most disappointing is the script.  They’ve gone for epic but not emotional.  They’ve succeeded in costumes and in hairdos and the whole atmosphere but the story leave me cold.  Yeah, and it takes 40 minutes until the first swordfight, and swordfights are what a movie like this is all about.”

The film companies now hope for at least a million sold tickets to recover some of the cost. Which is a sensation in itself turning ARN into one of these national film icons that have to be seen and never mind the quality.    

“This is absolutely going to have a lot of people going to the cinemas.  A million people?  I don’t know.  I’d say that ARN compared to new movies is a bit old-fashioned.  It’s slow moving and not a very visual movie.  It doesn’t have great special effects and even though it’s a high budget movie in Sweden, you can see that:  well, how many sword fights and how many big battles can we have in one movie for this amount of money?”

What about those beautiful landscapes? West Gothia – the very native landscape that ARN offers.  And now everybody hopes that there will be streams of tourists next summer, traveling to trace ARN and his historical steps. 

“That will of course happen for the Swedish audience.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually manages to make some money in Germany, where Sweden in itself is a huge brand.  But, I’m sorry to say, I don’t think this will be the success that the movie company hopes for.”

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