Evil (2003)
Evil is Not Where You Think--Could be Called Triumph of the Will
Sustained mainly by solid direction and good acting, and suffering from a low-level familiarity and brush with boy-school clichés, Evil is eminently watchable, ultimately rewarding. It slowly builds on the compelling lead boy/man played by Andreas Wilson, and the violence he almost unbelievably rises above. He is saved by friendship and love (and sex, maybe), and has to endure not just a cruel stepfather but a cruelly wimpy mother who lets him get a beating for nearly nothing.
The most chilling part of the whole power-tripping by these boys is not that it's believable (it is and it isn't, in turns), but that it is a metaphor for what has happened already: Nazi Germany in the 1930s, a culture built on intimidation, old fashioned rule of honor over justice, and a forbidding of so-called snitching (of telling the necessary truth when inconvenient to someone in power). And of course, being in power this way really is a sham, a house of cards that has to be maintained by ever vigilant violence, and threats, and deception.
I'm not making up the metaphor, either. The meanies in the boy's dorms are distinctly Nazi-esquire, and there is even an absurd (patently absurd, alas) scene of a teacher stereotyping boys by body type--the inferior Southern type against the better, stronger Germanic type, etc etc. It's appropriately sickening, and good to see in this Swedish film, Sweden as a nation having still some angst-wrestling to do over their role (or lack of role) in exactly this area--fighting Nazis and Nazi social tactics. It's subtle enough to work, and by the end you share the main character's triumph.
Women will fall in love with Wilson, by the way, a kind of Nordic James Dean. I'm not sure if that's a carrot or a stick. But watch him. He's a true case of triumph of the will.
Evil is Not Where You Think--Could be Called Triumph of the Will
Sustained mainly by solid direction and good acting, and suffering from a low-level familiarity and brush with boy-school clichés, Evil is eminently watchable, ultimately rewarding. It slowly builds on the compelling lead boy/man played by Andreas Wilson, and the violence he almost unbelievably rises above. He is saved by friendship and love (and sex, maybe), and has to endure not just a cruel stepfather but a cruelly wimpy mother who lets him get a beating for nearly nothing.
The most chilling part of the whole power-tripping by these boys is not that it's believable (it is and it isn't, in turns), but that it is a metaphor for what has happened already: Nazi Germany in the 1930s, a culture built on intimidation, old fashioned rule of honor over justice, and a forbidding of so-called snitching (of telling the necessary truth when inconvenient to someone in power). And of course, being in power this way really is a sham, a house of cards that has to be maintained by ever vigilant violence, and threats, and deception.
I'm not making up the metaphor, either. The meanies in the boy's dorms are distinctly Nazi-esquire, and there is even an absurd (patently absurd, alas) scene of a teacher stereotyping boys by body type--the inferior Southern type against the better, stronger Germanic type, etc etc. It's appropriately sickening, and good to see in this Swedish film, Sweden as a nation having still some angst-wrestling to do over their role (or lack of role) in exactly this area--fighting Nazis and Nazi social tactics. It's subtle enough to work, and by the end you share the main character's triumph.
Women will fall in love with Wilson, by the way, a kind of Nordic James Dean. I'm not sure if that's a carrot or a stick. But watch him. He's a true case of triumph of the will.