THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 15, 1994 TAG: 9412150050
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
IN THE MOVIE YEAR in which ``Forrest Gump'' has taken the nation by storm, here is another story of a seemingly simple underdog who overcomes awesome adversaries with amazing ease. This time, it's little Roland Schutt, a half-Jewish boy who is growing up with his Socialist parents in a Stockholm suburb in the 1920s. He is the youthful hero of ``The Slingshot.''
Roland is taunted by his prejudiced classmates and a bigoted, strict teacher. His older brother, who is being forced to become a boxer by their macho father, regularly breaks his nose. His mother is understanding but has neither the rank nor gumption to stand up for him.
Still, Roland, as played with natural youthfulness by Jesper Walen, rises above it all.
The second coming-of-age film in the current Virginia Festival of Jewish Film at the Naro, it is far more accomplished and important than the earlier ``A La Mode.'' In fact, ``The Slingshot'' (Swedish with English subtitles), through careful attention to details, emerges as something of an epic. Based on the real-life boyhood of the inventor Roland Schutt, it often attempts too much - swerving off into numerous subplots with no warning. At the same time, it is blessed with unending energy.
Young Schutt is a cool operator. He views adults as absurd, perhaps insane, beings who are always obsessed by things like politics.
His mother is a freethinker who promotes birth control and distributes condoms - a practice that is strictly against the law in the Sweden of the time. Knowing, and caring, nothing about the Socialist stance that gets his parents into trouble, Roland, in the film's more outlandish segment, goes into business on his own by turning the condoms into ``balloons with knobs.'' He does a brisk business with the neighborhood kids until his mother catches him.
He does even better financially when he designs a state-of-the-art slingshot from the condoms.
There is a wealth of supporting characters to make this neighborhood sparkle with lively folks. The episodic nature of the storytelling prohibits any real sustained plot involvement, but this is a lively and entertaining film. MOVIE REVIEW
``The Slingshot''
Cast: Jesper Walen, Stellan Skarsgard, Basia Frydman, Niclas Olund
Director and Writer: Ake Sandgren
MPAA rating: R (language and sexual situations)
Mal's rating: three stars
Location: Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk at 8 tonight, 5 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Monday as a part of the Virginia Festival of Jewish Film ILLUSTRATION: SONY PICTURES photo
``The Slingshot'' is based on the real-life boyhood of the inventor
Roland Schutt, played by Jesper Walen.
by CNB