For this article I've chosen to use the swedish films about literary figure Arn Magnusson as an example, namely Arn: The Knight Templar (2007) and Arn: The Kingdom at Road's End (2008). The reason why I've chosen these is that they contain most of the mistakes and quirks that generally bug me about swedish film. Also, they are big budget films, and as such they really shouldn't have these problems at all - but they do. So, here we go!
Pet Peeve 1: Theatrical Acting - My limbs are flailing wildly
This is one of my major problems with swedish film. For you non-swedes out there: In Sweden we have a theatrical institution called Dramaten, which to some extenct has functioned as an haven and breeding ground for most of the big-name actors in Sweden - be they involved in film, theatre or both. Dramaten, being a theatre, naturally has encouraged traditional, theatrical, acting with all that it entails. You know what I mean. Dramatic pauses, exhaggerated intonations, articulations and emotional displays, wild gestures and body movements. This has had a huge influence on the way swedish film actors act. Actors often deliver their lines in a very stilted, theatrical manner. I'm not sure whether non-swedes pick up on this as much as I do, but it does get tedious and melodramatic. Granted, not every actor in Sweden goes through Dramaten, but it has in some ways set a standard for acting in the country.
The following clip is from Arn - The Knight Templar, and illustrates some of the points I'm trying to make.
I'm sure that this is a type of scene we've all seen to death at this point. The lovers-to-be frolicking in the grass. The calm before the storm. Playfully pretending to be dead. Okay, perhaps not that last one. Never has affection looked as contrived as in this scene. Is this love or fear we see in her eyes? I swear I can see the reflection of director Peter Flinth in her eyes, gesturing wildly to the couple, frothingly mouthing "MORE CHEESE". That could explain the fear. The dialogue, naturally, is beyond forced and, to be fair, I can't see any actor doing that much better with the source material than these two did. But still, it could've been delivered with more grace. Instead, we get wild flailing, grimacing, dramatic pauses and line delivery more reminescent of an amateur poetry reading than a big-budget movie. Very disappointing.
Pet Peeve 2: Sloppy Dubbing - Unintentional ventriloquism in the echoless cave
Not all Swedish films have issues with sound and dubbing, but I dare to say that most do, in one form or another and the two films about Arn have a surprising amount of these issues considering its big budget and the amount of care that went into, say, the cinematogrophy, costumes, etc. The usual problems Swedish films have with dubbing and dialogue sound is synching and reverb/EQ. These problems aren't always apparent to the non-sound-geek, but at times they can be glaringly obvious to say the least, and bring you out of the experience.
Synchronisation issues usually come from not using the recorded dialogue sound from the actual recording of a scene, but rather to dub it over in a studio at a later date, and the result can be that the sound from the spoken dialogue isn't in synch wuth the lip movements of the actors. To an actor it can be an immense challenge to deliver a line in the exact same way as you did on the actual shoot, and to dub an entire movie is understandably time consuming and demands patience and high precision. Putting that extra effort into it is, however, worth it. I'm just sad to see that so many Swedish film makers obviously disagree with me on this.
The second issues that usually arises from dubbing dialogue is problems with reverb and EQ. Most people realize that a line spoken in an abandoned quarry will sound different from a line spoken in a confined bathroom. Most sound designers, even in Sweden, will realise this and try to adjust the reverb accordingly but not always successfully. EQ, the audio frequencies of the the recorded sound, however, is not always as apparent. A line recorded in a sealed studio, with a directional condenser microphone at close range, will sound very different to the same line recorded out in the open and at a distance. This is due to the proximity effect, an audio phenomenon which makes a closely recorded voice sound bassier and fuller. It feels as if the person speaking is right next to you. It is critical to compensate for this if your scene has someone screaming, far away on an open field. You usually cut the low frequencies responsible for this. Failure to do so will make the scene seem a bit odd - visually, the character is far, far away, but the sound tells you he's right next to you. This is also something certain sound designers in Sweden struggle with, especially so in Arn for some reason. This is exacerbated by poor blending of background ambience with the dialogue, making it really stand out and scream "studio recording" at you, naturally bringing you out of the moment. Combined with sloppy synchronisation, this occasionally turns Arn from the epic, big budget competitor to American cinema that it aspires to be to a generally awkward, pretentious and poorly executed cash-sinkhole-manifestation of a Swedish cinematographic inferiority complex.
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This concludes part one of my rant on Swedish film. This text should in no way be interpreted as contempt toward the tons of talented and hard working professionals involved in Swedish cinema, but rather a humorous angle on things I think we could improve on. The Arn films are by no means exceptionally bad films in themselves. They do, however, lend themselves well to criticism, and as examples of things that can universally be improved upon.
Part two will follow.
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