Everlasting Moments

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

How is it that a small Scandinavian-German co-production that opened theatrically in the USA in early 2009, garnered good reviews but quite unspectacular box-office receipts and has already played multitudinous times on cable television is now coming out on DVD from Criterion no less - and in a Blu-Ray edition, yet? When you watch Everlasting Moments, the answer will come clear. A film from Swedish writer/director Jan Troell, who, back in the early 70s gave us The Emigrants, The New Land and his single American film Zandy's Bride (sadly none currently available on DVD here), this lengthy but consistently engrossing work tells the story of a marriage, a family and the budding of - against great odds - art and independence. Think of it as a more literal "I Am a Camera," early 20th-century, lower-class, Scandinavian style.

We know from the beginning that the wife, Maria - a strong, focused performance from Maria Heiskanen (Lights in the Dusk) - has won an expensive camera, and that her husband has agreed under pressure that, though he wants it, she can have the camera. (She actually uses it as a bargaining chip to get married.) Hardly a blessed union, this duo has its downs and farther downs. He's an abusive drunk, for starters. And yet. One of the great strengths of Troell's film is that its characterizations are full-blown.

Hubby (a highly sexual, alternately ugly and sad performance by Mikael Persbrandt) can be a creep, but he's no monster, and the little woman, for all of her perseverance, does her share of nagging and withholding sexual favors: "Promise me you won't drink!" - and we all know how much good that line will accomplish. Likewise, "the other woman," a salty barmaid (Amanda Ooms), offers her own surprises, as does the photography shop owner (Jesper Christensen) who gives Maria her first taste of how to use a camera. As a writer, Troell never pushes things. The story takes its sweet time to unfurl (2 hours, 10 minutes), but with each succeeding bit, we are pulled in more deeply.

The time and place, too, are rendered with spectacular skill and beauty. Even the sometimes very grainy look of the film seems appropriate; the grain itself has a gorgeous feel to it. (There is one scene of a corpse lain out, in which said body is clearly breathing. I wish that Troell and his crew could have taken a bit more precaution there.) The ace in the hole, however, is the film's look at early photography and, in its final half, early moviemaking. The director smartly places us in the position of people for whom the photograph is a wonderful mystery, something to be treasured and, in the case of our heroine, understood. Everlasting Moments is a paean to photography, and finally to the plight of the artist. When Maria bewails the fact that her love of photography has taken over her life and become even more important than motherhood, many of us will understand her. When you love your art, even the important stuff is reduced to a distant second.

Criterion's Everlasting Moments DVD offers several worthwhile extras. A short documentary, "Troell Behind the Camera," includes interviews with the director, cast and crew and even relatives of the real Maria Larsson (the movie is based on factual characters). And "The True Story of Maria Larsson" includes photos of the real Maria and is narrated by a relative who tells of the woman's life and work. "Troell's Magic Mirror" is a one-hour documentary about the writer/director. And finally, there's the usual theatrical trailer.