11/02/2006

Container, Lukas Moodysson´s fifth feature after a number of award-winning films, such as Together(2000) and Lilya 4-Ever (2002), is having its official screening today in Berlin’s Panorama section. Although the film is a real experimental piece of filmmaking, everyone involved in the project should rest assured as audience reaction to last night’s world premiere was very positive. Furthermore, after today’s press screening, a US distributor said: "I’m really impressed. I was very disappointed by Moodysson´s previous film, A Hole In My Heart, but my faith in him is restored!"

Good news then for Trust Film Sales, which is handling international sales for the film, and producer Lars Jönsson of Memfis Film, who has given the Swedish director his full support since the very beginning of his career.

Like most films from the enfant terrible of Swedish cinema, Container is a trip into unknown territory. "A woman in a man´s body. A man in a woman´s body. Jesus in Mary´s stomach. Her water breaks. It floods into me. I can´t close the lid. My heart is full," is the three-line synopsis of Moodysson’s film. An experimental film shot in black and white, Container is like a musical score with a continuous narration by US actress Jena Malone, who delivers (in a soft and sexy voice) a text expressing the director´s personal phobias and obsessions with war, sex, religion, celebrity and the fear of death while images with no linear structure illustrate Moodysson’s poetic, and slightly depressing, vision. The two lead characters played by Swedish actor Peter Lorentzon and Thai-born dancer Mariha Aberg are thrown in the film, or container, like pieces of meat, zombies walking through shattered rooms or areas devastated by war and Chernobyl. In this nightmarish vision where a woman is trapped inside a man´s body, the outside world and other people are an act of aggression against the sensitive leading man/woman who acts like an autistic person. Because for Moodysson, "Container is an autistic film".

In spite of its "difficult" subject and style, the film is subtle, sensitive, full of pleasant contrasts between the soft spoken voice-over and the harsh words and images presented. Moodysson even manages to throw in touches of humour about pop culture and his own fear of paparazzi and fame.