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Swedish Sensationsfilms:  A Clandestine History of Sex, Thrillers, and Kicker Cinema

by Daniel Ekeroth
Brooklyn, NY: Bazillion Points, 2011
240 pp. $23

And See What Happens: The Journey Poems

by Ursula Vaira
Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press, 2011
112 pp. $17

Swedish Sensationsfilms:  A Clandestine History of Sex, Thrillers, and Kicker Cinema, by Daniel Ekeroth (translated by Magnus Henriksson), is, superficially, an irrelevant book. Most of us will never see most of these films, and Ekeroth makes clear, in his reviews, that many deserve the oblivion that is reserved for trash, even if they are sometimes peculiarly alluring or enthrallingly appalling.

What makes Swedish Sensationsfilms a valuable read is the catchy prose of Ekeroth, who is an expert on Swedish rock bands as well as films, and who writes with the gusto and clarity of a fan trying to explain why one film is worthy, even if it exploits nudity and torture, and another is too sleazy to touch or too crazy to puzzle through. His commentaries may be more entertaining than are some of the films, and, reader beware, his prose is as frank as the flicks that he either acclaims or defames.

Ekeroth canvasses almost 300 Swedish features, made between 1951 and 1993, that revel in shock and schlock, most of which were highly criticized and censored, at home, and only a few of which attained international prestige. The sensationsfilms delighted in exploring taboo subjects and twisted characters via explosive plots. Subjects included “street punks, sadistic mobsters, space aliens, unruly housewives, ruthless drug pushers, bloodthirsty ninjas, teen temptresses, lingonberry cowboys (the Swedish version of so-called spaghetti Westerns),” and a host of bearded, Scandinavian creeps, Don Juan-wanna be rockers, and “drunken Vikings.”

Given such vivid material, it is excellent that Ekeroth and publisher include images from or about the movies that he discusses.  There’s practically one photo or more per film, so the book is as lavish visually as it is highly coloured in prose style.

Ekeroth makes the point that the most acclaimed Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman, also made a distinguished sensationsfilm, namely, The Virgin Spring (1960), a rape-revenge story that “earned Oscar, Golden Globe, and Cannes awards.”

Ekeroth describes a less worthy flick, Joseph Sarno’s The Farmhouse Girl (1978), as “probably the most notorious film in this book within the confines of Sweden,” for its wide release ensured that most Swedes absorbed its depiction of naughty, naked rubes – and “a soundtrack built around very heavy accordions.” However, there are “flaws in the dialect department, as the supple country Dalarna girls all speak with thick city-slicker Stockholm accents. Also flawed is the acting, utterly horrendous in an indescribable way. There is a total lack of feeling in the delivery of the lines, and sometimes actors stumble, or simply just restart, saying the sentence over again with little improvement. Very comical!” Ekeroth’s critiques seem dead-on and are always humorous. They are sensations in themselves.

Ursula Vaira’s debut poetry collection, And See What Happens: The Journey Poems, chronicles three personally transformative journeys – odysseys – she has undertaken in the British Columbia wilds. The first of these – the subject of the titular poem – finds Vaira as “a Caucasian civilian, the only woman in the canoe,” joining eight men on a joint Mounties-First Nations healing journey with respect to once-lawful police mistreatment of indigenous Canadians and the need to address addiction issues.

The cause is just, but the writing is more pedestrian than transcendent. So, the good phrase, “whose anger reaches to the marrow,” is preceded by the cliché, “Whose hearts are hardened.” We learn that “Mounties (were) made to do the government’s dirty work,” to try to eliminate First Nations heritage, but will now “sit still / have their sins named by grandmothers,” et al., and will later apologize for “those acts which, although sanctioned / by law at the time, were morally wrong.” After this corrective ceremony, “there will be feasting.” It is good news, but it lacks the concentrated power of vigorously arranged words, i.e., poetry. There are better moments, such as when Vaira describes canoeists “(jabbing) at the water.” Her verb, “jab,” sets the whole stanza swinging. Verbs, not sentiments alone, give us poetry.

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