Flickan tells the story of a young girl, who finds out that her parents will be going to Africa for the summer to take care of the "less privileged children". Her Aunt comes to stay at the house to take care of her while her parents are gone but when the Aunt gets "the chance of a lifetime", the young girl is left alone for the summer. Fredrik Edfeldt's Flickan is essentially a very unconventional coming of age story that raises some interesting and poignant discussion. From the very beginning of this film you can tell that Fredrik Edfeldt is committed to telling this story from a young child's point of view. As her parent's pack we are shown unique compositions really demonstrating the anxiety and fear which the daughter is experiencing as her parents prepare to leave for the summer. Blanca Engström does a fantastic job as the young girl. She does not have that much dialogue, so the film relies quite heavily on her mannerisms, posture, and facial expressions to give insight into this character. Luckily for us, Blanca pulls it all off remarkably well. The director uses a very strong symbolic example in a high diving board at the girl's summer camp to portray her maturation. In the beginning of the film, she is defly afraid of the board, yet as the film progresses we see that she can stand on the diving board, but still won't take the proverbial leap. There are lots of interesting things going on in Flickan but the film does still have a few issues which I thought needed to be addressed. The main one being the departure of the Aunt. Yea, they set up that she is irresponsible and possibly a drug addict of some sort but I still would have liked a little more closure into exactly why she made such a bold move as to leave her young niece home alone for the summer. Through the summer we see childhood cruelty, carnal acts among adults, and a budding romance all from the perspective of this young girl. Although the pacing could be a little slow for some, its a moody, atmospheric, thought provoking film about innocence and adolescence. 7.25/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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