Watch Everlasting Moments For Free

Pretty Good

People are voting emotionally.

Absolutely the worst movie.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Emotional, engaging drama.Set in Sweden in the early-1900s, the story of married couple, Maria (played by M0aria Heiskanen) and Sigfrid (played by Mikael Persbrandt), and their children. He is a drunk and abusive. She can definitely do a lot better, yet she sticks with him. Then she discovers photography...Interesting story, and often a harrowing ordeal. Quite frustrating at times, especially every time his darker and jealous side is revealed and she still stays with him. Does move slowly though, and the path it takes does seem a bit watered down. However, the final scenes are quite emotional, and do provide a fitting conclusion and a good point to the movie.

This is a story of a woman who lives in 1907 in Sweden, married to an abusive, philandering, jealous, alcoholic husband. It is although you took a trip through a time machine. Everything in the grim poverty seems completely real. It has none of that brand-new shininess that period pieces usually have were every building, piece of clothing, car and house is gleaming. She has 7 angelic children. This seems odd since neither of the parents are particularly good looking. An one point we are told we are now 5 years later. Yet the children, replaced by different actors, looked about 14 years older. That was the only time the illusion of reality was broken.Her life is a grind, just barely making do by taking photographs and sewing. It has a surprise happy ending, but even that is snatched away by the grim realities of life in poverty.The children are smug Christians, quick to condemn for breaking biblical commandments. They are quite obnoxious little Puritans.So much goes on in the background. It bit like living in the neigbourhood.The movie is made up of daily small events, one after the other, with a slow heavy pace.My review gives no hint why the movie is so good. It the opposite of Hollywood, the opposite of contrived, the opposite of make believe.

This is an interesting Swedish film about a woman, Maria Larsson, who lived in the early twentieth century in Malmo. The film is based on true events and is in Swedish with subtitles, so if you're not into reading subtitles you'd probably better stop reading now. Before I tell you what I think of it, I'll give you a short synopsis.We begin in 1907 where Maria, her husband Sigfrid and their three children are living in Malmo. Sigfrid, or Siggi to his friends, works on the docks and, when he's had a drink, he is prone to hit his wife and the children. Maria pleads with him to stop drinking, which he does for a while and then he's back into the same routine. One day Maria finds a camera and, because money is short, she decides to take to a photographic studio to see if she can sell it. The owner, Mr Petersen, takes pity on her and, rather than buying the camera, he shows her how to use it. She takes her pictures back to the shop and Mr Petersen helps her develop them. He is impressed and gives her developing chemicals and photographic paper so she can continue. Mr Larsson by now is having a hard time at the docks, Socialism is spreading across Europe and a strike is called. Maria continues to take photographs on and off and after the outbreak of World War One, one is chosen to be printed in the newspaper. As time passes the family grows larger and Siggi begins to have affairs with other women, but Maria stays with despite all his bad ways.The story is narrated by her eldest daughter, Maja, whose perspective gives the film an interesting narrative. A well made film which, if slowly paced, gives an insight into life in Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century. Decent performances from all of the main cast: Maria Heiskanen as Maria Larsson, Mikael Persbrandt as Sigfrid Larsson, Jesper Christensen as Sebastian Pedersen and Callin Öhrvall as Maja Larsson (age 15-22).I quite enjoyed this film, although it has a slow pace, but you're never quite sure what will happen next. I have seen some of Maria Larsson's work on various TV shows about photography and she certainly had an eye for it. In the end it's quite a touching story about a woman torn between her passion for photography and her love of her family. Just one comment about the subtitles, why do the people who put subtitles on films insist on keeping to just one colour, sometimes the background is the same colour as the text and it's impossible to read! (OK, rant over) Over all, recommended for those that can deal with the subtitles.My score: 7.3/10

I have an old photograph of my mother when she was five years old walking down the Boardwalk in Atlantic City in 1930 with my grandparents and I often wonder what their lives were like at that moment in time. Jan Troell's "Everlasting Moments" attempts to do just that as he brings old family photographs to life in his sweeping family saga set in Sweden at the turn of the century.Everlasting Moments begins in the Swedish port city of Malmo in 1907. It's a true story based on the reminiscences of Maja Larrson who is the film's narrator. She takes us back to when she was a child and we're introduced to her parents Maria and Sigfrid (Siggie) Larrson. Siggie is a dock worker who also happens to be an alcoholic. Maria (wonderfully played by Maria Heiskanen) is his long-suffering wife. Although Siggie belongs to the Temperance Society he is continually relapsing and most of the tension in the film's first half revolves around the harrowing scenes of domestic violence in which Siggie uses his wife as a veritable punching bag.Maria is under tremendous pressure, not only from the heartache of having to deal with her often drunk and philandering husband but also raising a brood of precocious children. One day Maria rediscovers an expensive camera that she and her husband had won in a lottery at the time they got married. She decides to take a picture of her children without her husband knowing about it and brings it to a local photography shop and meets the kindly shop owner, Sebastian Pedersen. Pederson is a bit older than Maria but they soon form a lasting friendship. Pedersen eventually shows Maria how to use the camera and develop pictures.Meanwhile, we get a real feel for the history of the times as we see what happens to Siggie as he becomes involved with Socialist and Communist agitators who seek to unionize dockworkers in their fight against the shipowners. At one point British scabs are brought in and one of the strike breakers is murdered. Siggie is a suspect for a short while but is cleared after a local floozy who he's been having an affair with provides an alibi.To Siggie's chagrin, Maria presses forward with her fascination with photography. Eventually she starts earning extra money taking photos of people in the community. In one sad and sensitive scene, Maria declines to charge a woman who asks her if she could take a picture of her daughter who has just died after falling through the ice wandering too far out on to a not so frozen pond. The image of the deceased girl is one of the many striking images of still photography seen in this film.Things come to a head when Siggie suspects that Maria has been having an affair with Pedersen and brutally rapes her. As a result, Marie is pregnant with another child who ends up with polio. Finally, Siggie takes things too far and drags Maria outside and almost slits her throat with a knife. As a result, he's arrested and thrown in jail (presumably there were neighbors who were witnesses to this horrible act but we never see them nor are there any scenes of Siggie being arrested and brought before a magistrate).While I expected Maria to leave her husband and go off on her own running her own photography business, that's not what happens in the film's denouement. Instead, Maria stops taking photos for quite awhile and loses contact with Pedersen after the family moves to a different part of town. After Siggie gets out of jail, Maria decides to stick it out with him. Some say it was Maria's memories of her father exhorting her never to leave her husband since it was "God's will" or perhaps it was simply Maria's conservative nature. More likely it was Siggie eventually becoming more mature. He gives up the bottle, starts running a successful moving company and becomes a decent family man. It should be pointed out that Siggie is only a monster when he's drunk. Other times he's shown to be a sensitive man (in one scene, he prevents a man from abusing a horse in the street).Maria's farewell to Pedersen is a poignant and bittersweet moment in the film. The two part knowing that their relationship was never meant to go further than it did. Pederson's shop is like an oasis for Maria while she's trying to cope with her husband in the early years. Although Pedersen is not a very 'exciting' character, and there's little conflict between the two, he's a soothing and supporting presence, contrasting nicely with the brutal and oppressive Siggie.Some of the other characters in the film are not sufficiently developed. Siggie's 'anarchist' buddy who commits suicide due to an fulfilled life is one such character. Maja, the film's narrator, has a brief scene where she's almost molested by an employer while working as a housekeeper and then there's the youngest son who's briefly seen trying to cope with the ravages of polio—these characters and scenes seem almost like afterthoughts.Nonetheless, 'Everlasting Moments' is still filled with indelible, everlasting moments and images (especially check out the effect that Charlie Chaplin had on the Larrson family—that's a scene you won't forget!). Jan Troell's look into the past is not sentimental but more wistful. And even more important, he teaches us about the trials, tribulations and the sacrifices made by the older generation as they stumbled into a firm and rewarding maturity.