Tuesday 4 July 2006

Fucking Amål



In the beginning of Lukas Moodysson's movie, Agnes is sitting in front of her Computer Diary, writing the words JAG ELSKAR ELIN. "I love Elin".
The first part of the movie is designed to show us the differences between Elin (Alexandra Dahlstrom) and Agnes: Agnes, 16 years old, comes from a seemingly wealthy, loving middle class family. She listens to Morrissey and reads poetry. Elin on the other hand comes from a broken up, working class family, her single mother works miserable night shifts. She is 14 and has a two year older sister with whom she shares most of her social life, which consists of partying and drinking along with the other miserable teenagers in the small town of Amål (where, according to her, things already are out once they reach town). Both teenagers are unhappy in their situation. They finally meet each other at Agnes' birthday party, a rather miserable one since Agnes has no friends apart from a girl in a wheelchair that likes the Backstreet Boys and Leonardo diCaprio (in one of the more shocking scenes of the movie, Agnes screams at her: We are not friends. We only hang out with each other cause we don't have anybody else). Elin's sister dares her to kiss Agnes, whom she thinks is a lesbian ("What will I get for it?" "Well, probably AIDS"). Elin wins her bet by kissing the disturbed Agnes, although she feels bad about what she has done afterwards – and after going to a party, getting drunk, fighting off a boy who is in love with her, throwing up and leaving, she decides to say sorry, interrupting Agnes' impulsive suicide attempt to the beautiful sound of Pachelbel's Adagio for Strings. They go out on the streets of Amål in the middle of the night, Elin decides that t hey should hitchhike to Stockholm to get out of "Fucking Amål", but it is the more grown up Agnes that finally decides that they should really get into the car that stops for them. They share their first kiss to the kitschy sound of Foreigner's I want to know what love is (hence the English title) – and the driver throws them out, leaving them alone once again, in a rather awkward moment. Elin does not know how to deal with the revelation and decides to date the boy that had been in love with her, Johan – she even sleeps with him, maybe because she thinks that this will help her to find out about her sexual identity – all the while Agnes suffers terribly. In the end they hook up with each other, despite the intolerant community of their school.
The plot sounds simple and resembles that of The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love – a teenager identifying as gay falls in love with another who does not, who also comes from a different social background. What makes Fucking Amål different, special, is the adequate analysis of contemporary youth culture in Europe in 1998, which is also the reason why so many people tend to identify with the movie's two protagonists (although, if you do research on the internet, you might find that people who identify with Agnes are probably more likely to have seen the movie at all, while those resembling Elin might have stuck with the more popular "Titanic" of the same year). We know both worlds – the world of outsider Agnes, who prefers poetry and music she would be considered to young for to her peers – the world of popular girl Elin, who parties to the sounds of Eurotrash and drinks too much alcohol for her own goods. Both are desperately trying to find their identity in a community they don't fit in at all, Agnes fails to connect to her parents while Elin would give anything to escape the crampedness of Amål. Elin states that she wants to be different, and Agnes just is different, maybe by her own choice, maybe not. To what extent Agnes choices are acts of rebellion is never clear – although her vegetarianism might be regarded a protest against her mother.
According to Moodysson, the movie is about Elin. Elin moves from identifying as heterosexual to being in love with Agnes, she possibly gives up being a popular girl by the end of the movie when she literally comes out of the closet. Agnes, meanwhile, has gotten what she always wanted and there was not much need to change, for her – she just had to wait. Therefore, it is a movie about transformation, but the viewer is probably more likely to sympathise with Agnes, although she does act cruel at more than one point of the movie (especially towards her wheelchair-bound friend). Her frustration turns against herself – she is bottled up, sad – while Elin is more outgoing and takes her frustration out on other people. She has ambitions beyond the imagination of her friends, who all want to become their own parents – becoming like her single mother is Elin's worst fear. Agnes is more troubled by the presence than the future, since most likely, she is going to University and will live in a different city. This conflict was also the center of some episodes of Freaks and Geeks – Lindsay Weir sometimes resembles Agnes.
Moodysson's art is not being able to tell a very original story, it is more about how he manages to give his two leads an identity, and how he portrays youth culture. Especially the music is very revealing. Elin is always surrounded by Eurotrash, Agnes by Morrissey and classical music. The movie ends in Elin's world, possibly revealing Moodysson's very own sympathies. He can rely on an exceptionally strong cast, then 17-year old Liljeberg and 14-year old Dahlström, who make it impossible to draw a line between character and actor.
You might look back on this movie feeling nostalgic about your youth, feeling that you moved on to that point, probably identifying with other fictional characters. But for me, Rebecca Liljeberg will always somehow represent this miserable, miserable time of being 16.

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