“The Last Sentence”Film – June, 2014
The Last Sentence has all the makings of a Stieg Larsson story: A savvy, leftist Swedish leftist newspaper crew, a hot and heavy romance between editor and the publisher, and a complex international political plot. Plus, “The Last Sentence” was based on a true World War II story.
In The Last Sentence, Oscar-nominated director Jan Troell, one of Sweden’s most acclaimed filmmakers, brings to the screen the story of former theologian and writer-crusader, Torgny Segerstedt (the striking Danish star Jesper Christensen) pitted in a 15-year editorial battle against Hitler, the Nazis, and Sweden’s policy of appeasement.
Unfortunately, the similarities between The Last Sentence, and the Millennium trilogy differ early on as the focus turns inward and into the sticky, personal lives of the individuals instead of out at the intriguing political web surrounding Sweden before and during WWII. In “The Girl” series, there is just enough of light soap opera in the triangle between publisher-reporter-and whomever reporter is sleeping with at the moment – in other words, the norm in Scandinavia.
In The Last Sentence , the middle-aged lovers can be tedious, maudlin and self-obsessed. Even played by the striking Danish star Jesper Christensen it is farfetched to watch otherwise accomplished lover, wife, daughter and even a young secretary fawn like groupies over a man who pays more attention to his dogs (and dead mother) than to them.
Segerstedt’s arguments are sound but purely humanitarian, and without consideration of the national political scene, that of a Sweden with a weak military, caught between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia. It is why Swedish rulers chose a policy of neutrality and compliance.
At the same time Segerstedt maintains an open affair with the Jewish wife, Maja Forssman, (Pernilla August) of Axel Forssman (Bjorn Granath), his publisher and close friend. Lots of angst on the part of the Forssmans, but does the religion of his Jewish lover influence his writing? We do not know. Even when one of his beloved dogs is poisoned by an angry reader, there is little reaction. In fact, he shows almost as little emotion to his (short suffering) lover, as to his long-suffering wife, Puste (Ulla Skoog). Nevertheless, all three declare their love for the writer, with an aside to how much they taught him, to their dying days.
Segerstedt is also no Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, the Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. As Sweden’s special envoy in Budapest between July and December, 1944, Wallenberg rescued almost one hundred thousand Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary by issuing protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings designated as Swedish territory, saving tens of thousands of lives.
So in the end, we care the most because the acting and the cinematography in black and white is absolutely exquisite. And Cinematographer Mischa Gavrjusjov’s images are so moving we can linger on an icy stream for a long while, and even wish we were there.
The movie also entice viewers to read the book by Kenne Fant. There are hints of how Segerstedt’s character developed. The screenplay was written by Klaus Rifbjerg and Director, Jan Troell. The film was produced by Francy Suntinger. In Swedish with English sub-titles, the film runs 126 minutes.
The Last Sentence opens at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in West L.A. and Lincoln Plaza in New York City on June 20.
As both book and film, The Last Sentence is an important introduction to the complex relationships between western Europe, Scandinavia, Germany and how they played out during the war. Another is Walking with the Enemy, which also devotes time to Swiss Vice Consul Carl Lutz in saving the Jews of Budapest by creating false passports and shelter.
Billed as an “adventure film inspired by a true story,” Mark Schmidt, writer and director, somewhat exaggerates the daring but true escapades of young Jewish Pinchas Rosenbaum, who dons a Nazi uniform and rescues Jews picked up by Nazis and Nazi sympathizers who are on their way to concentration camp.
Ben Kingsley is brilliant and believable as Hungarian Miklos Horthy, regent of the kingdom of Hungary, supposedly faced with choosing the lesser of two evil alliances with Russia or Germany in war. The film shows how the German occupation of Hungary in 1944 prevented him from concluding an armistice with the Allies, the consequences being mass deportations of Hungarian Jews and Jewish refugees, along with the ultimate extermination of half a million Hungarian Jews, gypsies and gays from Hungary. While Kingsley has the one true Hungarian accent among the actors in the film, his story is inaccurate.
Horthy’s alliance was actually based on the promise of the restoration of territories lost in World War One, and the shared belief of anti-communism, ultra-nationalism and anti-Semitism. Horthy, in fact, enacted a series of anti-Jewish laws and conscripted Jewish men into the labor brigades.
Thus, the two films show that truth may or may not be stranger than fiction but either one isn’t necessarily the most appealing or entertaining.