The Gullspång Miracle Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

The Gullspång Miracle Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 20, 2025

Three Identical Strangers told such an absolutely incredible, indeed almost unbelievable, story that it was only the participation of the people who actually experienced it that may have convinced some viewers that what they were seeing actually happened. Something quite similar and perhaps even more bizarre (if that's possible) is afoot in the Swedish documentary The Gullspång Miracle, a twisting, wending tale that has some probably unneeded "meta" elements courtesy of filmmaker Maria Fredriksson, but which tells such a patently incredible story that Fredriksson's stylistic quirks ultimately don't really matter all that much. Those are on display from the get go as Fredriksson introduces two of the three main "characters" in the piece, middle aged sisters Kari and May. May is in an apartment she evidently owns, relating how she came to purchase it, but Fredriksson keeps stopping her, telling her to be more natural, something that probably only hilariously makes her (and, later, Kari) more performative. With attendant disjunctive editing, there's therefore a kind of curious subtext here that may not be intended that nonetheless kind of unavoidably hints at pretense, or at least overweening self awareness.

That one peculiarity aside, what ensues is one of those amazing stories that seems to be either a paradigm of cosmic coincidence or Jungian synchronicity (which may boil down to more or less the same experiential reality). I'm only going to spoil a few of the opening revelations of the film in order to demonstrate at least part of what is divulged, but suffice it to say May and Kari are kind of preternaturally religious, and after an accident forced May to find a house near Kari's home, May for reasons perhaps unknown even to herself feels like she has to buy a still life of fruit to hang in the kitchen before she can actually find whatever residence she's going to buy. The two search in vain for just such an art piece to no avail, but then on an absolute lark they tour an apartment for sale in the nearby titular Swedish village that, yep, you guessed it, has the very piece of art on the kitchen wall May has been envisioning. May pretty much buys the place on the spot, but when they go to the agent's office to sign the contract and meet the seller, their world literally turns upside down.

Also suffice it to say the subsequent events (and, frankly, antecedent events once the whole story is told) are so gobsmacking that they really should be experienced first hand without foreknowledge. I'll merely drop a few hints by saying there are generational secrets at play which may (or, again frankly, may not) involve wartime Norway and Nazi experimentation, potential suicide and/or just as potential murder. To kind of riff on the rejiggered 'ohana means family concept in the recently reviewed Lilo & Stitch, the people at the center of this saga have to figure out exactly what "family" means for them. The forgoing ambiguity that this review may hint at is actually part and parcel of Fredriksson's presentational approach.

The Gullspång Miracle Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Gullspång Miracle is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 (a few archival and/or home movie moments hover nearer Academy ratio). I haven't been able to find any information on the shoot (and the IMDb has literally nothing other than "color" as of the writing of this review), but this is a competent digital capture that offers nice detail levels across the board, and a healthy accounting of an understandably frigid at times palette. There are interstitial moments as alluded to above in the aspect ratio mention of home movies and old newsreels and those can look pretty shoddy at times by comparison.

The Gullspång Miracle Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Gullspång Miracle features Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks in a combination of Swedish and Norwegian (our specs only allow for one major language per release). There's not a ton to the sound design here, with most of the documentary given over to either talking heads or narration, but some of the outdoor material gets a bit more of a spacious accounting in the surround track. All spoken material is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Gullspång Miracle Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Director Maria Fredriksson (HD; 17:27)


• Trailer (HD; 1:57)

As with many releases from this label, the main menu also has an About Film Movement option that brings up a text box with information.

An insert booklet offers an interesting essay by Sara Clements. The sleeve has an inner print. The original exclusive Vinegar Syndrome release evidently had a slipcover, but the review copy sent to me did not.

The Gullspång Miracle Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I can tell you from personal experience how finding long lost family members can be an absolutely life altering experience. My late father was orphaned at the age of 8 with a slew of younger siblings, all of whom were placed in foster care, some none too successfully (my father happily escaped that particular fate and evidently lived with an apparently loving foster family). We grew up knowing how this event had traumatized not just my Dad, but his siblings (including a sister who, like a character in the film may have done, ended up committing suicide), but my Dad and his surviving brothers didn't really like to talk about things, and it wasn't until they had all passed that my eldest sister and I really started digging, actually pre-internet to begin with, and were able to find some tantalizing clues about his biological family. With the advent of the world wide web and especially DNA testing, we ultimately found my Dad's bio family scattered all over the globe, with a major group of cousins, including a newfound first cousin(!), residing in Toronto, where of course I quickly journeyed to meet them all. (It also turned out I had a second cousin in the House of Lords, and when my wife and I visited London a few years ago, we were treated to a private tour of Parliament and got [?] to sit on the floor of the House of Lords during an interminable Brexit debate.) This is a rather thought provoking piece on several levels, and while it could have used less of Fredriksson's intentional artifice, the story is so remarkable and intriguing (including what are in essence questions left unanswered, at least for some) that the documentary never fails to captivate. Technical merits are solid and the interview with Fredriksson enjoyable. Recommended.