Director, Screenplay: Lukas Moodysson
Swedish with English subtitles
89 minutes
Film Comment magazine describes Fucking Amal as a Swedish feelgood lesbian teen flick. Feelgood? It sucks. This is a story of teenagers who live in a hicksville called 'Amal', the bimbos are exactly like those I went to school with (thank God now I'm rid of them), and the boys are wannabe homies who jivetalk and compare mobile phones like comparing their penis size, only in reverse ("Mine's thinner and slimmer than yours! Yours are too long" etc). Agnes is not part of them because she's 'not cool', doesn't wear make-up, doesn't look like a teenage slut, sits alone at lunch time, and when they find out she is in love with Elin (wild, popular, buxom, bored) she becomes an object of school ridicule. In cases like this I would approve school massacres, because stupid homophobic wannabe teens like these are a waste of food resources and most probably they'll end up on the dole, bludging, getting high and buying expensive stuff using your taxes or car stereo, yada yada yada. Ha ha ha.
OK, so Agnes loves Elin, Elin doesn't know, Elin kisses Agnes for money, Elin thinks she likes Agnes, they try to catch a ride to Stockholm, Agnes becomes the school dyke, messages received wrongly, parties (aargh! happy hardcore!), hang-outs, Elin gets a crush on Agnes, they become an item with the disbelief of Elin's peers. Is this a queer film? I think not. It's just another high school torture movie (yep, we've seen enough of them, and there's still heaps more to come) spiced with a bit of queer. Probably to attract larger audience. The commercialisation of homosexuality. That should insult some people, especially those from the gay community - even I am rather insulted. Bored teens in search of identity and sexuality. Oh how familiar, how intellectual.
Then I start to wonder if this movie is actually scripted. These are ugly teens with no brains, and Johan is so dumb, Markus makes dumb statements to look smart, and the rest are just as idiotic. Either unscripted and improvised (therefore the dumbness) or they are good actors (eh?). And that girl from Elin's gang who has overplucked brows is just soooo irritating. And why the hell does Agnes wants to commit suicide? Solitude would be much much better than being with these annoying bastards.
Which is why the title is "Fucking Amal", and not "Fucking Elin" or "Fucking Agnes". And such a fucked-up town it is. The title is the saving grace of the film, saving it from being yet another excruciating teen flick. Fucking Amal is about living in a hicksville with homophobic rednecks and wannabes. Ah, saved. But where is the subtlety? Or perhaps because Amal is such a shithole of a place, it just has to be like this? See review of Set Me Free, another teen angst movie, but with a different spirit. Apparently it screened right before Fucking Amal.
natalia laban
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