 |
| Image Courtesy Brainstorm Media |
Swedish people can be stereotyped as naive because they can be quick to give someone the benefit of the doubt. This can also happen because of a dark historical event from the Middle Ages where Swedish nobility took a Danish king at his word, and it ended very badly.
Even though the countries are now connected by a high-traffic bridge and a commuter train, Denmark and Sweden fought over the southern tip of what’s now Sweden. Part of this conflict was what’s known as the Stockholm Bloodbath, where almost 100 Swedish nobles were executed in a public square by Danish King Christian II. Christian had just taken over Sweden, and disgruntled Swedish bishop Gustave Trolle gave him a long list of Swedish royalty accused of ‘heresy’.
This massacre is the climax of Mikael Håfström’s Stockholm Bloodbath (2023), an overlong, mess of a movie that never finds its genre footing. Plenty of elements of the film work, but they never tonally fit together.
The film starts with a ‘this is sorta true’ tone and introduction of a gang of antagonists that’s fun, but a slaughter at a wedding soon shifts the tone. Surviving bride Anne Ericsson (Sophie Cookson) and her mute sister Freja (Alba August, daughter of Danish film director Bille August) join forces in what feels like it could be a tale of two warriors who change history.
Except the film doesn’t go that way. The jaunty tone from the credits is left behind when historical fiction and war genres take over. Despite there being a couple of jokes sparsely scattered throughout the film, it never returns to the fun opening tone. Even when Claes Bang (your go-to actor for Scandinavian villains) hams it up as King Christian in some flamboyant costumes later in the movie, the film feels disjointed and messy.
Anne and Freja get a few scenes where they get to fight back in some ways, but this also feels disconnected from the rest of the film. The tone and genre switches so much through the first 90 minutes of the film that when Christian II takes over Sweden, you’ll be checking to see how much more is left. And the answer would be another hour.
If these young sisters had been more the focus of the film, it could have worked as a less-than-serious alternate history. Similarly, if the film had picked one genre to stick with or found a way to unify the disparate elements, it could have been more entertaining.
Unfortunately, Stockholm Bloodbath is another disappointing film from Håfström that never decides what it wants to be.
- Eric Beach