If unpleasant goings on in posh public schools is a not uncommon genre of film this particular Swedish take on the theme, Ondskan (which translates as Evil) has to be up there with the best of them. It has a rather extreme but utterly compelling take on youth, the code of the playground and the mentality of bullies. Highly recommended.
We also saw Mean Creek the other night (swap the Swedish public school for an American boating expedition) which was far less satisfactory - though quite a good yarn. We thought the sound was a bit difficult to penetrate sometimes - either the kids were mumbling to be deliberately au naturel or we are just too used to seeing films with subtitles and not having to worry about such things! Or it was just the surround mix didn't come over well in plain old stereo. Who knows. Mean Creek did have some things going for it, it is a simple story told simply and a suitably realistic situation and did give us a cue for all sorts of discussions about just how much freedom young people should be allowed - or will take for themselves. It was also pleasantly short - I thought it could have gone on for another half hour, but it obviously just didn't need to and stopped around the 90 minute mark.
