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Ägget är Löst! En Hårdkokt Saga
Egg! Egg! A Hardboiled Story
The Softening of the Egg
Sweden 1975
produced by Svenska Ord, Svensk Filmindustri
directed by Hans Alfredson
starring Gösta Ekman, Max von Sydow, Birgitta Andersson, Anna Godenius, Hans Alfredson, Börje Ahlstedt, Ingvar Petrow, Jim Hughes, Stig Ossian Ericson, Jan Wirén, Meg Westergren, Ola Thulin, Kerstin Lokrantz, Anders Jonason, Bengt Ottekil, Hasse Jakobsson, Freddy Jönson, Verner Sommarhag, Tage Danielsson, Maria Lidman, Michell Åberg, Angelica Lundqvist, Ole Birger Sörensen, Per Carleson, Manfred Månsson, Folke Lind, Annika Edil, Stellan Sundahl, Barbro Johansson, Anette Kindberg, Ingrid Tönsager, Orest Koslowsky
screenplay by Hans Alfredson, based on his short story Pojken i Vattnet, music by Alfred Janson
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The father (Max von Sydow) is a rich industrialist who has made a
fortune turning eggs into plastic, and now has developed an egg-based
ass-scratcher - and he treats everyone around him who doesn't throw a
bundle of money at him like dirt, and that's not only his employees but
also his wife (Brigitta Andersson), whom he routinely unfaithful to with
prostitutes, and especially his son (Gösta Ekman). Now the son wants to
do right, but when his dad's employees ask him for assistance, he can only
tell them he's as powerless as they are. He falls in love with one of
dad's employees (Anna Godenius), but when he invites her for a trip, she
only takes him for her money and bails before they can get intimate.
Ultimately, the son figures he has to kill his father and thus enters his
office, shoots him in the chest, then returns home to have oedipal sex
with his mother - only to be interrupted by dad who has apparently worn an
steel breastplate, and who now drives the son out into the forest and
throws him into a pond, where his feet get stuck in the mud, the rest of
his body entangled in the plant life, and thus he can't get out anymore.
His head is just above water level, so he can breathe, but his neck
constantly in the water make him lose his voice in no time. But the son
quickly learns to survive in his new, impeded state, how to live from
plants and insects floating on the surface, how to catch the occasional
fish, and eventually he finds an eel as companion. When winter comes and
the pond is frozen over, the son goes into hibernation, but when the ice
melts he becomes untangled and crawls back onto dry land - and a tramp
(Hans Alfredson), whom dad has released the dogs on earlier to chase him
off the property, takes the son in and nurses him back to health.
Returning to civilisation, the son sees that everything has changed: Using
all the eggs of the region to make ass-scratchers has left the locals
without food, thus the workers have started a revolt, and now dad has
bunkered himself into his estate, guarded by armed security. The son
becomes the leader of the rebel workers, leads them to the factory where
he attempts to make the ass scratchers into eggs again - and he's
celebrated for it, until the process turns out to be less than
satisfactory. Now the workers want to make him responsible and he bails
back for the pond to live the rest of his life in water - to find his
friend the tramp has had the exact same idea ... A wonderully
weird genre mix that goes from social satire (with some slapstick thrown
in) to an oedipal drama of revenge and counter-revenge, to fairy tale with
strains of surrealism, and ultimately back to social satire with traits of
a parable - and yet the film feels like a coherent whole, thanks to a
cleverly written and well-structured script, a subtle directorial effort
and solid performances. The thing still feels like somewhat of an oddity,
but one that's well worth a watch for sure!
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