Birger is old and retired from work, but he still goes back to work since he has nothing else to do. Back home he gets a rare visitor: a girl from Hare Krishna recruiting new members.
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A old man is in a bus and speaks to a girl sitting on a next seat but she shows no interest in him. He gets to a factory where he worked in the past. He speaks this former colleagues but they refuse to deal with him. He comes back home and he calls someone who don't know him to get a partner to speak. Then, a girl who propagates religion visits him. He is glad to get the partner to speak to. However, she tries to leave. I think the situation in this film resembles a problem of dying alone Japan. In Japan old people die alone and many times pass because nobody notices that they are dead. I think dying alone is caused by a lack of a relation to people. This film tells me that it is very difficult to keep the relation but that is the most important thing to live.
A man lives alone. Although he has already retired from company, he talks to people that he is working at the company. And he goes to the company every day. He telephones to some people at random to talk. One day, a missionary comes his house. And the man let her come into his room. The man has nothing to do and nobody to talk with. He is isolated, but he wants to control people. This film depicts a human nature affected by isolation. You can see his real nature as the plot develops. We don't know what triggers an explosion of other people's feeling. His real nature is revealed by meeting the missionary. I think it is scary but interesting. I like this film.
In this short film, the main character is a middle-aged man. When I watch this man, I got a little frustrated. Why? At first, I thought he wants someone who needs him, but his way is too far from that easy simple wish. I think that he wants to control someone. Every time and everywhere, I encountered that kind of people who are always middle-aged men, sometimes mid-aged women and little children. Those people try to bully someone who was weaker than them. Although there is exception, I think people should be equal to each other basically. So this main character is an offensive person. However, turning to myself, am I sometimes like those people? When I watch this, I was frightened that I possibly hurt others in the future when I get older than now.
Birger works at Volvo and tries to talk to people as he gets the bus to work. However he doesn't work at Volvo anymore as he has retired but has nothing to do but hang around. His loneliness is very hard for him and he is grateful when a knock on the door brings a girl preaching about Hare Krishna to his home. He invites her in but his desire for even a conversation is intimidating to her.The title of this film in English is 'Talk' and it sums up the content pretty well even if the film goes further than it should have done. In essence the film is quite moving and very real as we see Birger struggling to find anyone who will spend time with him. At my job we have a similar guy who retired years ago but continues to hang around even though many just feel sorry for him this film has a similar guy in the lead. He tries to talk on the bus and, even in the early scene before we know much about him, he seems lonely and desperate. The film extends this idea well but, in the last few minutes it goes somewhere that I didn't expect and didn't fit with the tangible reality that I felt it had built up till that point.This is a complaint but it is not one that takes away what it had done in the 10 minutes or so up till this point. The character of Birger is well written but succeeds because of very good delivery from Ljunggren. His natural and pained performance is spot on and he is the cornerstone of the film. Frode is annoying and the film doesn't treat her very well but it's easy not to really notice her part in the end of the film as Ljunggren is pretty dominant.Overall this is a great little film that blows it a bit at the end by losing touch with the reality that it had set up so well but this is not enough to make this a bad short film, just a lesser one than it should have been. But the material, the direction and Birger makes it well worth seeing.