Goodbye Little Betty
Director: Ronny Carlsson
2013
Art house
As a
major Alice Cooper fan I can’t help but think about the song Dead Babies from
the early Seventies when I see the title of this. It’s a song about child abuse
and negligence, at least that’s my interpretation of it. Having seen all of Ronny Carlssons previous films I
figured that this would be about something like that. I was wrong! In fact, I
can’t even say what it’s all about; there are no conventional storyline to be
found! Yet I’m immediately hooked by what I see. I’m envious of Ronny as it seems so very easy for him
to create suspense. Nothing really happens and still I’m so curios to what’s
going to happen next and what the bottom line might be. Is there a message to
be found? What is he trying to tell us? What deranged mind wrote this script?
It’s a
very provoking film in the way that it’s made, maybe not as much as the pitch
black sequence in Regissören but it’s
close! And it’s all the way through too! As a viewer and reviewer I’m forced to
watch this very unorthodox solution on how to tell a story. First we get all
the events, then we get the metaphor and finally we get the storyline. Maybe
the storyline and the metaphor are one and a same when I think of it…
I’m
sorry to say that this approach was a bit of overkill for me. I liked the idea
to be sure but after a while I find it hard to focus. It would have needed some
relief in my opinion. I won’t go into to detail on which way I find it unconventional
since I consider that a major spoiler in this case. Let’s just say that the way
the film is made seems to be more important than what it’s really about. I have
no problem with that but as I said before, some relief would have done it for
me, maybe halfway through the film.
It’s
still a good picture though! It has a beautiful black and white picture and it
has a lot of suspense. But I find it a little bit too slow. I don’t necessarily
want to wait the entire film before I get any answers. Yet I find it so brave a
movie that I feel that I must commend this in some way. During the first half I
was convinced that this was going to be a total fucking awesome flick (to be frank).After
the second half? Well, it has flaws…
8/10
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