Review by
Sue Finn
Directed by: Carl Sundström
Starring: Signe Elvin-Nowak, Jonas Lundström, Isabel Camacho, Cristian Asvik
Beginning with news reports detailing the disappearance of a young mother
(Ulrika) and her infant child Alice, we learn that Ulrika was missing for
11 days before she was found dead. Alice is still missing.
Directly after the title-screen, we are introduced to Linn (Signe Elvin-Nowak), a journalist who explains that the following film we are about to
watch is a documentary she made to try to come to terms with the strange
things that she found while researching Alice and her deceased mother.
We talk to Yasmin (Isabel Camacho), who is employed as a camera
operator on the project by the enigmatic Ola (Jonas Lundstrom), who
is someone they all trust and have worked with in the past.
Yasmin learns that Ola is actually working with a production company
called WP, which instantly makes it a far bigger project than she may have
wanted to sign on for, but she is committed now.
Luckily Ola recorded all of their work phone calls, so we are treated to
information about Ulrika which is verified by a heavily disguised
caretaker who was working when the still alive Ulrika was brought to
hospital. She describes the dying young mother as in such a poor state
that she was "the closest you can get to the living dead." Ulrika passed
away soon after her arrival at the hospital.
Like The Blair Witch Project, we start this journey in a hotel room where the crew (Linn the
presenter, Ola and Yasmin on camera and Jocke doing sound) discuss how
they are going to achieve the film that they want to make.
The next day they arrive at a remote village in Northern Sweden and are
chauffeured around by Therese (Camilla Westman) who also offers to
take them wherever they need to go, including to the woods where Ulrika
died and her daughter disappeared.
Having said that, she isn’t comfortable with their first destination
selection, but after some misgivings, she takes them to the home of
Michael (Johannes Yachouh), partner of Ulrika and father of Alice.
Michael explains that he wasn’t allowed to see his deceased loved one,
even though she was found alive and that he never saw her body because she
was cremated before he had a chance to say goodbye. He claimed this was
all swept under the rug by the police and that this is the real story.
After Therese mysteriously makes a quick getaway, Michael takes them to
where Ulrika’s body was found, and the crew marvel at the fact that she
supposedly lived for two weeks in the wilderness where it’s freezing every
night. They wonder how she could’ve possibly survived, and she was found
naked, which is just another strange aspect of the case.
They venture into the woods to look for clues and hints, but no one seems
particularly sure exactly what they are hoping to find; which turns out to
be odd symbols on rocks.
With night closing in, they take shelter and by campfire Jocke explains
that it’s a creepy place because five people have gone missing in the last
seven years there - a fact that Ola had hidden from them.
After an eventful night they wake to find one of their party
missing.
And when they head off in search of him with only the bare minimum of
supplies, frantic and afraid, you know none of this is going to end well.
This Swedish found footage/mockumentary is only the second feature by
director Carl Sundstrom and at least from a technical perspective,
it’s quite the achievement. It looks and feels professional, shot with
self-assurance, and though more found footage than mockumentary, its
shaky-cam style is just enough to immerse you without making you sick.
This is very much in the spirit of the aforementioned
The Blair Witch Project, except that in this case our filmmakers have phones and a map, although
it doesn’t really do them many favours, and this is lacking the sting in
the tail that genre-defining film had.
As for the screenplay by Sundstorm and Nathaniel P Erlandsson, the
movie shoots itself in the foot with the framing device of interviewing
Lynn and Yasmin from the beginning, so you know that they are okay and
survive what happens; the tension is lessened by this knowledge.
Unfortunately I found this film to be ultimately unsatisfying and it
afforded me only one small scare.
It’s a shame this isn’t great, because it’s well acted with characters
that you like, a good setting, reasonable ideas behind it, and confidently
filmed; but there’s something missing and it just misses the mark for me.
Reportage November is on VOD now.
