Fraught with uncertainty, life’s crucial transition into adulthood is evoked through the restless youth of five Swedish young men in Falkenberg Farewell. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM relives the moment.


THIS IS a movie about man-love. Or is it boy-love? Either way, this quietly beautiful film captures that limbo between youth and adulthood, a time of no direction, promise, confusion, loss, dreams, and a time that was over too soon when it was happening, but where life stood still when nostalgia kicks in with hindsight.

Falkenberg Farewell looks at five youths growing up in small-town Falkenberg, Sweden in what is the last summer of their youth. There’s Holger, who never wants to leave Falkenberg for reasons he can’t really articulate, but we can all understand. There’s David, Holger’s best friend, who is a poet and a dreamer, and whose diary and thoughts form an aural soundtrack to the film (in addition to the quite stunning music). There’s John, Holger’s brother, who is moody and rather lazy. There’s Jorgen, the entrepreneurial criminal, full of energy and probably knowing full well that a small town like Falkenberg probably won’t be able to contain him for much longer. There’s also Jesper, who wants to be anywhere but in Falkenberg, but is tied to a father he never really speaks to.

The film’s real power comes in its relationship to ‘real-life’. The five friends are played by the friends themselves, re-living this period and its memories as the film builds towards tragedy; symbolically and in reality, life will never be the same. There’s a nagging sense that these are real memories, the diaries and the tragic conclusion are actually real, and its emotional pull becomes even greater and far more pronounced as a result (this is one film where it’d be fascinating to hear the director/writers speak). It also looks at the nature of memory – this liminal space of adulthood and childhood becomes one where particular memories stand out, even if they’re not particularly important or significant. Things such as skinny dipping, eating a whole bunch of bacon, breaking into a house for the hell of it, talking to your dad. While the voiceover and the occasionally overly poetic moments may seem a little heavy-handed, this does help set up a rather emotionally devastating farewell.

The film feels like early Gus Van Sant, particularly My Own Private Idaho. By no means explicitly about homosexual love, it’s about the particular bonds that young men can have when they share a childhood and adolescence together. The ragged visual style certainly evokes Van Sant – beautiful external images are placed alongside highly introspective and personal moments. The filmmakers themselves had no formal film training, and the result assists in creating a quite stunning personal touch, free from the fetters of ‘style’ or hamstrung by ‘proper’ narrative construction. The end result is a highly emotional, moving and haunting film that captures this crucial moment of life so well.