Man tänker sitt / Burrowing (2009)

Screenplay and directors: Fredrik Wenzel and Henrik Hellström

International title: Burrowing

A middle class block during summer. A boy wanders around in his own world, sometimes corrected by his mother. A father of a small child ignores sense and future and puts all his attention to his little son in his arms. A solitary young man paddles towards a diffuse goal after having been wrestled down by his father.

Man tänker sitt is a portrait of a middle class residential district in Sweden, focusing on a boy and two grown-up men. These are people who lack direction and live closed into a world of themselves. But they also seem to live naked; they were never clothed with love. Ignorantly they hunger for it and can neither see nor give to others.

Man tänker sitt is accompanied by sacred choir music and a boy’s voice reading Thoreau texts. It is a very poetic film that lingers in the moment and explores people in close-up, mainly without words and leaving a lot open for one’s own interpretations.

There is a strong melancholy over Man tänker sitt that brings the thoughts to Ingmar Bergman's works. It can be seen as an attempt to sketch Man when he lacks God, left out to an existence without God, an existence lacking goal and meaning; a world where he stumbles in mud without hope. What we also see are people unable to see others. Neither does the film present solutions.

The personal expression of Man tänker sitt is admirable. It is nice to see that Swedish film financiers still support artistic expressions in fiction feature films. But I have a sense that this film could be so much more. Isn’t cinema also about communication? If a speaker talks too unclear, even the most poetic speech becomes hard to appreciate. The recognition and inspiration disappears.

In conclusion; a compliment to the authors for a free expression of things that are a little too blurred by... the expression.

P P