Everlasting Moments (Jan Troell, Sweden, 2008)

Everlasting Moments is a film that, at first, you may not like. But you find it sticks with you and even though you may have first thought you didn’t like it, the more you think about it the more it grows on you. On the surface level Everlasting Moments is exactly that: everlasting. It’s tedious and long and dull. However, looking back on it, you don’t remember those things. What stays with you is the beautiful character study of a mother fighting to keep her family afloat while trying to have a dream of her own.

The story begins in Sweden during the early 1900’s. We are introduced to Maria (Maria Heiskanen) a mother of four children. Everlasting Moments is narrated by Maria’s eldest daughter Maja (Callin Ohrvall) We begin with Maria entertaining her daughter’s schoolteacher when her husband Sigfrid (Mikael Perslorant) comes home, drunk from a day of working at the docks. Time and again Sigfrid promises to sober up, but after awhile goes straight back to the bottle. He hurts Maria verbally, emotionally and physically. Since times are hard, Maria goes to a studio to sell the one valuable thing they have left, a camera. There she encounters Sebastian (Jesper Christensen), a photographer who befriends her and shows her how to use it. He lets her keep the camera and buys it from her by giving her the supplies she needs to take pictures. The film continues through the rest of Maria’s life and struggles surrounding her family, her husband and her love for taking pictures.

The look of the film is soft and pure, as if the entire thing was an old photograph itself. The lens is softly focused giving the set and the characters a fazed look. The colors throughout the film are muted, adding to the picturesque quality of the design. The characters are dressed in very bland costumes which focuses the audience’s attention on the story and the character development rather than the mise-en-scene.

Maria’s camera is a focal point of the movie. At first it brings her much joy, more than she has experienced in a long time. Her face is beautiful and innocent as Sebastian teaches her how to use it. We are so unphased by technology, as we are surrounded everyday with TV’s, Ipods and digital cameras. Her excitement as she captures and image for the first time brings us back to an era when technology was new and magical. Also, it gives us an idea why it seems as if in the early pictures no one knew how to smile. They had never experienced anything like that before, so when they posed for pictures, part of them was unsure about what was going on.

Another interesting concept is that the camera may be used as a metaphor for Maria and Sigfrid’s love. It is the object in which they started their marriage around after having won it at a fair together. After Sigfrid’s drunken beligerance, just when she’s lost hope in him, Maria decides to sell the camera as if finally giving up on Sigfrid. But she keeps the camera and as she does, she stands aside Sigfrid. Throughout the film Maria’s views on the camera and on Sigfrid parallel one another until the very end.

Rent this movie on a rainy day when you feel like curling up in a blanket. Everlasting Moments isn’t very entertaining per se, but you learn a lot about a mother who sacrifices a lot for her children. It’s a nice change from shoot-em-up movies and makes you want to call up your mom to tell her you love her.