This is a very good film. I’m not quite sure how to review
it without taking anything away from the steady stream of surprises which this
film holds in store for the viewer.
I have to confess something here; I am
probably the only person on the planet who disliked the film “Forrest Gump.” I
have never made it through more than 15 minutes of it. And yet this film is
somewhat similar. And that’s all I will tell you. I will give you this much though; here are the notes, right from the back of this exceptionally creative film.
“After a long and
explosive life in munitions, involving a multitude of seminal moments from the
20th Century, including the Spanish Revolution, the atomic bomb, and
the Cold War, Allean Karlsson finds himself
- on his 100th birthday – stuck in a tranquil Swedish nursing
home. Determined to escape the monotony he hops out a window and kicks off a
hilarious and unexpected comic-adventure by way of a stolen briefcase, a
hardcore biker gang, and an escaped circus elephant named Sonya.”
It’s funny that as I read the liner notes today I think I
understand more fully the difference between “Forrest Gump” and Allan Karlsson.
While Gump was a somewhat of a bystander caught up in the circumstances around
him, Karlsson is more pro-active, inserting himself in the situations which
present themselves. And for me, that makes all the difference.
