Apinatytöt

SPOILERS.  Diligence, will, determination. Strictness, concentration. No emotions. Yet the need for emotions. How will this journey from childhood turn out in the Swedish manner? The demands of society force two girls, the older of whom replaces the younger one’s mother figure, to choose extreme solutions when seeking their tickets into the (masculine) world of grand ambitions and self-confidence. The endangered species throughout the film is not women, but rather the men who can be charged with sexual harassment because of a mere careless gesture and whose symbols of boyhood (a horse, a rifle) are mastered by women (the closing scene beautifully embodies he saying “to be in the saddle”).___ Sara peculiarly vents her frustration caused by her lack of control and obeying the orders that Emma personifies for her (therefore she also tells her sister that she hates her) by destroying a plastic pony, as she is not yet strong enough to saddle a real horse. The motif of control and the feeling of power appears in the opening scene, in which only the dog is submissive. However, the father (rather marginally present, like all of the male characters) later proves to be as equally obedient, as he prefers to oblige his daughters in everything. ___ The effort not to lose her newly acquired and barely identified power is, in the end, the cause of the breakdown of the relationship between Emma and Casandra. Nevertheless, we are left in doubt as to whether what was born of their silence is actually a sincere friendship or just a calculated move aimed at gaining a more advantageous position. Though Emma trusts her new friend/girlfriend, as the scene with the blindfold shows, she also views their relationship as a form of experiment, after the dissolution of which she takes back her financial deposit. Even though Emma does not resist the relationship, she accepts it more or less passively, feeling that it weakens her extraordinarily strong will and making her more vulnerable. (In the end, the one that is actually wounded is Cassandra, who unsurprisingly displays more emotion.) The fear of losing control creates in her the need to return to her old, cold-blooded self, when she had her feelings thoroughly under control. ___ Information is doled out to us very slowly and with Scandinavian frugality without unnecessary speeches and emotions. Nearly an hour of the film has passed until we hear Cassandra’s name for the first time. Her identity thus becomes at least more important for us and, in the end, it is easier for us to pity her as a victim. Until then, it was not necessary for us to know her name. Thanks to the large space provided for the viewer to infer connections, the film does not serve to malign one particular type of upbringing/family model (what happened to the mother?). We come to know something sufficiently late so that this revelation prompts us to reassess the previous behaviour of the characters (who is Sebastian, actually?). The style of directing is as “tense” as Emma herself. The static camera, the repetitive introductory and final shots and the even more impactful culmination of built-up tension in the climax, when there must inevitably be a western-style duel (there is also the obligatory shot with a bunch of wind-blown straw), which surprisingly turns out to be the perfect antithesis of spectacular cowboy shootouts. Girls simply sort things out in their own way. Especially in Sweden. 80% (20.05.2018) (vähemmän) (lisää)