Beautiful movie about the doomed (real life) love couple Hedvig (her artist name was Elvira Madigan) the famous danish tightrope dancer, and Sixten the swedish count lieutenant. They have spontaneously run away, he from his wife and two children, her from her family´s traveling circus, and are now living on their love
and nothing else. They are sitting in the forest, having a picnic, cuddling, making love, in the opening scene.
Sixten´s friend Kristoffer, catchs them up later and fools around with Sixten a bit before updating him a bit what goes on in the town he left. When alone with Hedvig, he accuses her for ruining other people´s life, and later he tells Sixten, when Hedvig is presence, that Sixten´s wife had previously tried to kill herself. Sixten gets furious and accuses Kristoffer for lying, and leaves him.
While some thoughts tortures Sixten, Hedvig tries to get a job as a tightrope dancer. Her boss turnes out to be a real jerk, so they leave even before Hedvig has gotten her first salary.
When the reality starts to catch up, and they get tormented by hunger and desperation they finally decide to end their lives.
It´s not really the beautiful actors that shines the most in this movie but the director Bo Widerberg´s beautiful filming and the emotional music (Mozart´s 21rst piano concert, which many people now plainly call Elvira Madigan!) which fits like a glove in this romantic/tragic drama. You can tell that Bo Widerberg is inspired by the new wave, but still it takes place in the late 1900th century with the escapistic, romantic airs and fashination for nature and love, which was very typical in books in the late 1900th century. But what intensifies the whole feeling you get of the movie is that it´s based on a true story. Elvira Madigan was actually quite a famous celebrity during that time.
June 7, 2009
