The Guitar Mongoloid

The influence of Roy Andersson and his everyday tragicomic fragment is strong, but Östlund replaces the theatrical stylization and make-up with a very clear social background and documentary realism. Loosely intertwined anecdotes from Gothenburg everyday life point to the "parallel reality" of a strictly organized Swedish society, which is represented here by both a mongoloid boy with a guitar who does nothing, and a gang of bicycle destroyers. The storyline with a mentally handicapped lady who searches in vain for her bicycle, only to eventually find it strung on a lamp, has everything in it that makes Östlund Östlund. Poetry of life futility translated into the language of everyday life. (16/07/2017)