THE SIMPLEMINDED MURDERER
Sweden, 1982, 107 minutes, Colour.
Stellan Skarsgaard, Hans Alfredson.
Directed by Hans Alfredson.
Simpleminded Murderer is a very powerful piece of Swedish filmmaking. With period setting excellently recreated and with a touch of '30s fascism supported by the wealthy and the Church, the film focuses on a victim of Swedish society. The Idiot (as he is called) with Dostoevsky overtones and Christ figure suggestions, as well as avenging and destructive angel? is a young man with a harelip whose mother dies and who is sent out to work for industrialist Hoglund. Ridiculed, made to live with the animals, abandoned by his sister who has become a prostitute, he nevertheless survives by reading scriptures, especially the Book of Revelation. Angels appear to him, immense and strong angels with operatic overtones to the music of Verdi's Requiem. Ultimately, after a great deal of humiliation and suffering, balanced by friendship from a co-driver, people on a farm and their crippled daughter, he wreaks terrible revenge on Hoglund. Pursued, he escapes with Anna to momentary happiness and then death. The treatment of the film is a blend of realism and fantasy, high drama and melodrama combined with effective operatic treatment. The Idiot portrays essential goodness. Hoglund is portrayed as personifying evil and cruelty. Performances by Stellan Skarsgaard as the Idiot and Hans Alfredsen as Hoglund are excellent. Alfredsen was writer and director of the film.
1. The impact of the film as drama, a study of the human condition, realism and fantasy, destructive vision?
2. The recreation of period: Sweden, the countryside, the small towns, the city, the small factory, the farms? Vehicles? An atmosphere of authenticity ? for the credibility of characters and events?
3. The significance of the atmospheric score? The introduction of Verdi's Requiem for the vision of angels and the final avenging? The operatic tone of Verdi? The significance of the Idiot hearing a Requiem?
4. Expectations from the title? The grim aspect and directness of the title? Questions of madness and normality? Expectations for sympathy as regards characters? violence, responsibility? Issues of life and death, the taking of life, the judgment about the taking of life and death: clear and simple issues? The insight of the simpleminded?
5. The blend of realism and fantasy: the plot and characters? The scriptural background and the tradition of interpretation of the Apocalypse? The fundamentalist, literal reading of scripture? The Apocalypse and its visionary style? The angels, their avenging role, the visual presentation of the strong men, their robes, wings, stances, vigorous walk, their singing the opera and the Requiem? The Idiot seeing them? others not seeing them? The screen technique of alternating between the Idiot's point of view and the others' point of view?
6. The religious background of the film: traditional Lutheran, austere? Puritanical attitudes, strict behaviour? Reactions to this religion? The Idiot and his simple beliefs? The effect of this kind of religion on his psyche, the apocalyptic and its appeal? The visions and their fantasy, the touch of madness? The importance of angels as messengers of God, messengers of doom, avenging? Religion as consolation? Religion and violence? Morality? Conscience, good and evil, guilt and forgiveness, death? The angels as the shadow of the Idiot, a glitter shadow?
7. The structure of the film: the importance of it being a flashback, audience judgment and expectations, mood? The car, the idiot and the girl, driving through the countryside, escape, the pause and the initial vision of angels, the Idiot and the girl hiding? Their simple relationship, her being crippled, his harelip, his protecting her, the lyric of the song? The memory and the recapitulation of his life before he died?
8. The Idiot and his harelip, the slur of his speech, difficulties in communication? Yet the impact of the device of the voiceover,' the clearly-spoken voice, the interior voice being stronger and more sensible and aware than the exterior voice? Contrasts in articulation? The effect of this counterpoint throughout the film? Judging the Idiot from two standpoints? illustrating the depth of his character, the reality of the drama, his morality?
9. The portrait of the Idiot in himself: victim, his disability, lack of mental development, his life at home, work, his sister and her departure, her later disowning him, his discovery of her being a prostitute, her cover marriage? The Idiot's mother and her strictness, religious background and instruction. scripture reading? Her death? The repercussions of her death, the people taking him away. going to Hoglund? The oppression by Hoglund, his being put in the stable and its squalor? His life there? and his sister's reaction? The friendliness of the driver and learning to drive the car? The encounter with the family and their kindness and understanding. Anna and the gentle response? The outings together. the carnival and the joy? His life a blend of hardship and happiness? His fascination with machines, the driving? His going into the city and being humiliated, even to having to dress as a woman? His reaction to the debauchery? The nationalist and fascist meetings and the presence of business men, military, the clergy? His kindness to the animals, relating to the horses? His being abused? His finally running away? His being taken in by the family, the happiness of his work? The bike, his being thwarted in getting the licence, the court case and the newspaper reports, his being a focus of feeling? His finally getting his licence, the exhilaration of riding? The revenge on the family, the accidents, destruction? Beatings? The Idiot being a cause of suffering to the family?
10. The credibility of his change from simplicity to avenging angel? The effect of the oppression of the family? The sequences of his reading the scripture? The insertion of the visions? His taking the blades, the vigorous walk through the factory to the Requiem and with the angels following, the workers not seeing the angels? The destruction of Hoglund, the destruction of evil? His being doomed?
11. Anna, her escaping with the Idiot, her lameness, laughter, tenderness, sharing? The happy family sequences? Her parents and their warmth? Work, the fair, suffering, the persecution of the family? Anna as a parallel to the Idiot? The pathos of her death?
12. Hoglund as the personification of evil: his appearance, manner of speaking, filmed in shadow? His appearance? His position in the factory, his control of people's lives, ownership, ruthlessness? His treatment of his wife? Of his child? His celebration and yet his harshness? Pampering his wife and yet humiliating her? The Idiot seeing all this? His sister and her role in the entourage of the industrialists, their debauchery? Hoglund's derision of the Idiot. putting him in the stable, making him drive, making him wait, dressing him as a woman? The Idiot seeing his harsh demands about the Christmas rent, the family without any money and Hoglund's stating of principles and yet merciless? Hoglund trying to prevent the Idiot having the bike? His over?reaching himself ~ his being destroyed?
13. The sketch of the sister, her leaving home, sexual behaviour, shame, her wanting to be disassociated from her brother yet her compassion for the stable? Returning from the city, her husband?
14. The portrait of the friend at the estate, teaching him to drive, punished? The members of the family and their being punished?
15. How effective the film as a grim parable, a micricosm of the 20th century?
