Winter and Edström, new authors to come out of the United States and Sweden, make their debut in this exercise in which fiction and cinema enter a state of crisis. It is a folk tale in which Ulla, the mother of one of the directors, lives on an island in the Swedish archipelago and does all the necessary chores to allow her to live alone. She is an example of strength, a female version of Walden. The authors create a new aesthetic, totally set in a conceptual system based on a comprehensive study of historic and present-day cinema. They pick up the influences of Pedro Costa and Straub and Huillet, among others, to create a counterpoint to Hollywood’s explosive, spectacular images. They present the natural beauty of the Baltic archipelago without sentimentality, looking beyond the imposing images to seek out constant movement. The Anchorage establishes a dialogue with the present-day movement of Neo-neo Realism in fiction film, but its touch is so light, so pure, that it allows us to bathe in the moment, in reality, devoid of metaphor, being, passing through, the passing of time. An authentic example of cinematographic rigour and sincerity.
The Anchorage, C. W. Winter and Anders Edström. Sweden/USA, 2009, 35 mm, 87 min.
