Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

A Swedish Love Story Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 14, 2015

Winner of multiple awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Roy Andersson's "A Swedish Love Story" a.k.a. "En kärlekshistoria" (1970) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye. The bonus feature on the disc is a gallery with excerpts from other films from the Swedish director. In Swedish, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Annika and Pär

Note: A Swedish Love Story is part of Artificial Eye's The Roy Andersson Collection Blu-ray box set.

Annika (Ann-Sofie Kylin) and Pär (Rolf Sohlman) meet at a large family gathering in the countryside and immediately fall madly in love, but they don’t know how to express what they feel. For a while they let their eyes do all the talking. Eventually, their mutual friends help them say the things that boys and girls need to hear before they start dating.

When her parents decide to spend the weekend away from the city, Annika invites Pär to their tiny apartment. They eat together, laugh and kiss. Then they fall asleep in each other’s arms. Later on, Annika visits Pär and his parents at their country home.

Their parents also meet. At first they try to be polite, but after a few drinks decide that it isn’t worth pretending that they like each other. When the masks fall off, however, they suddenly realize that the other side is deserving of their respect.

The beauty of this film comes from its striking simplicity. While observing Pär and Annika, one gets the feeling that director Roy Andersson might have been one of their best friends and it just so happened that he had a camera with him while they were hanging out together during the summer of 1970. Indeed, the visuals are so pure and so direct that it is virtually impossible to believe that Pär and Annika’s story was actually scripted.

While it is very beautiful, the film is neither elegant nor carefully polished. On the contrary, it actually has plenty of rough spots and even a few sequences that are awkwardly cut. Occasionally, the camera also completely abandons Pär and Annika, as if to allow them to share with each other secrets even their best friends should not be aware of. These rough spots and seemingly spontaneous camera movement, however, are what essentially solidify one’s impression that Pär and Annika’s love story is absolutely real.

Their parents, however, are seen from an entirely different angle. They look disillusioned, jaded, and often completely fed up with their monotonous lives. Their exchanges are banal, even irritating. And yet, it is their views and their logic that Pär and Annika are encouraged to embrace and follow.

The final twenty or so minutes are absolutely brilliant. As if to prove a point -- and this reviewer is convinced that Andersson had an old score to settle with someone that played an important role early in his life -- Andersson effectively ridicules Pär and Annika’s parents in a series of strikingly witty sequences. The shift is rather abrupt, but the satire is truly as wicked and hard-hitting as the one that is frequently present in Luis Bunuel and Aki Kaurismaki’s best films.

Born in Gothenburg, Anderson attended the Swedish Film Institute while Ingmar Bergman was an inspector there. A year after he graduated in 1969, he shot A Swedish Love Story with his good friend cinematographer Jörgen Persson (Lasse Hallström‘s My Life as a Dog, Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror).

A Swedish Love Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Roy Andersson's A Swedish Love Story arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye.

The release has been sourced from a pre-existing master, but the basics we typically address in our reviews are strong. Generally speaking, detail and clarity are very pleasing, with the majority of the well-lit close-ups, in particular, looking very good. The wider panoramic shots also boast decent depth. Contrast levels remain stable. Colors are also stable and natural, never appearing boosted. Grain is retained and visible throughout the entire film, but it is not as evenly exposed and resolved as it should be. This isn't to imply that there are any serious visual anomalies, but the encoding could have been optimized better so that the film looks even more convincing. A bit of extremely light noise also attempts to sneak in during a few of the darker sequences, but never becomes distracting (see screencapture #14). The best news here is that no attempts have been made to resharpen and repolish the film. Needless to say, this makes a huge difference when one views it on a large screen. Lastly, there is one transition where the sides of the frame look a bit rough, but there are no distracting large debris, cuts, damage marks, or stains to report in our review. All in all, while there is some room for improvement, the Blu-ray release definitely represents a very nice upgrade in quality over the old Swedish R2 DVD release of the film. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free Blu-ray player in order to access its content).

A Swedish Love Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: Swedish LPCM 2.0 and Swedish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I prefer the LPCM 2.0 track. The dialog is exceptionally crisp stable, and easy to follow, while Björn Isfält's score easily breathes throughout the film. Dynamic intensity is limited, but depth and clarity are outstanding. For examples, during the final sequence, where Annika's disparages in the fog, the echoes are very effective. Elsewhere, the mopeds also sound terrific. There are no pops, cracks, audio dropouts, or distortions to report in our review.

A Swedish Love Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Excerpts from Roy Andersson Films - a gallery of excerpts from various Roy Andersson films. In Swedish, with optional English subtitles. (16 min).

A Swedish Love Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Roy Andersson's En kärlekshistoria is one of the simplest and most touching films about true love ever made. I first saw it many years ago, but I still clearly remember how overwhelmed I was after its final credits rolled. Very few films have had a similar effect on me. It is now available on Blu-ray as part of British distributors Artificial Eye's new The Roy Andersson Collection Blu-ray box set. Make room for it in your collections, folks. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.