Dead number. Swedish working-class province of the mid-30s. Here, in a small apartment, lives not a very happy family. The head of the family boozes, drinks pennies and, in general, slowly but surely goes to the bottom. Life and everything connected with it somehow rests on the mother. Well, they have an adult son – the romantic Anders, writing a novel and dreaming of another, brighter and more optimistic life. That's just the area, called the Crow Quarter, firmly keeps the boy in this swamp and there are always reasons - for example, the pregnancy of a girlfriend - not allowing to break free.
One of the first proletarian-social experiments of the young Swedish director Bo Wiederberg remained noticed by world critics, and later his films became frequent guests of world film festivals. Wiederberg departed from Ingmar Bergman’s mystical-abstract form, as if showing that there could be another cinema in Sweden. But for me personally, this "different" cinema in an early attempt by Wiederberg somehow did not go. The director, like and understandable language, removes everything, conveys the emotional anguish of the young boy, shows the hopelessness of the working quarter (although the “hopelessness” here is very specific – “poverty” walks exclusively in decent costumes, white ironed shirts, sometimes smokes cigars, drinks clearly not moonshine and in general, the “hell” in the film is more spiritual than material and household). But all this happens at the director extremely slowly, philosophically-protracted, with elements of contrived self-flagellation.
The main problem of “Crow Quarter” is the amorphous storyline and hyperbolized experiences of the characters. The son reaches out to his father, but he does not understand him. Dad has been drinking for 13 years because he once got 'horns' Mom is all right, but boring and uninitiative. And the boy is looking for and looking for “light”, but he is only nothing old, and for a start it would be possible to sip a little life, but the director inflates from the usual youthful maximalism almost Dostevsky problems of being. In addition, Wiederberg also managed to weave the background of the threat of fascists coming to power in Sweden, clearly licking the opportunistic trend of the first half of the 60s. And still licked – the movie was nominated for “Oscar”, although in a very limited release in the States “Crow Quarter” got only a few years later. And it is clear why – Americans do not consume such “tight weights”. Well, a very strong Oscar ceremony among foreign films of the sample of 1965 for “intellectual ponts” was diluted.
The theme of “fathers and children” raised by Bo Wiederberg is certainly eternal and deserves attention, but the language of presentation should be selected for such films is still easier. Otherwise it won't digest. And with the plot it was possible to play a little, without giving everything to the mercy of endless emotional experiences. Cinema is not just a picture, it is a picture in action.
6 out of 10