28 February 2005

Evil (Ondskan), Sweden 2003


Erik Ponti has problems at school: he just likes to fight too much. He finally gets expelled from school. He also has problems at home. His stepfather finds the slightest excuse to beat him up. This physical abuse is naively tolerated by his mother, who remains silent the whole time. She sends Erik to a boarding school. In this place he learns the true meaning of discipline. Unfortunately, a group of students control the conduct codes and rules of this institute, and they do as they please, inflicting unfair punishments to all students. Eric will not put up with this, and fights against these bunch of students until the very end. He also confronts his stepfather, and he does this in a truly exceptional way.

Director Mikael Hafström has made a quite violent and graphic depiction of life in a boarding school. The fight scenes help enhance the message of the film, where the name Gandhi comes out several times during the dialogues. The story is very intriguing, guessing until the very end what will happen to Erik. The acting is also very good. It is definitely worth checking it out.

3 comments:

JORGE said...

Ahora está en el cine, yo la vi en Valle Oriente, de seguro luego la ponen en Blockbuster, pero no sé cuánto tarden.

Sofia said...

Actually one of my favourite films ever, did you see it in Swedish or in Spanish? I suppose Swedish and you did understand evey word of it Göran... The cool thing about "Ondskan" is that it is the autobiography of one of Sweden's mot famous journalists and the school in question is where all Swedish (Stockholm) brat kids go to. Even the Swedish prince Carl Philip went there... There is a sequel out right now (only as a book though...) telling the story about Erik Ponti and his friend (whatshisname?) as adults!

Anonymous said...

Bonjour Jorge, mon nom est Anne. que j'aime votre blog, je voudrais voir encore plus. J'ai un lien à ma photo préférée là. Au revoir