Adalen 31 **** (1969, Peter Schildt, Kerstin Tidelius, Roland Hedlund) – Classic Movie Review 12,272

Writer-director Bo Widerberg’s 1969 Swedish drama film Adalen 31 [The Adalen Riots] was Oscar nominated and Golden Globe nominated for the 1970 Best Foreign Language Film, and won the 1969 Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival – appropriate recognition certainly, though also-ran recognition perhaps.

This well meant, socially conscious drama shows the human side of a disastrous 1931 strike at a Swedish small-town paper sawmill district of Ådalen, where a striker’s son makes the boss’s daughter pregnant. In the Ådalen shootings, strike-breakers are assaulted by the strikers and Swedish military forces are sent in and on 14 May 1931 open fire against the labour demonstrators, killing five people, including a young girl, and injuring five more.

Adalen 31 is an attractive film from the director of the world’s prettiest film, Elvira Madigan (1967), and this one is intelligent and beautiful too.

The film was released as The Adalen Riots in the US, where it was X rated.

The main cast are Peter Schildt as Kjell Andersson, Kerstin Tidelius as Karin Andersson, Roland Hedlund as Harald Andersson, Marie De Geer as Anna Björklund, Anita Björk as Hedvig Björklund, Olof Bergström as Olof Björklund, Jonas Bergström as Nisse, Tommy Malmström as angry young communist, Olle Björling as strike breaker, Pierre Lindstedt as supervisor, Stefan Feierbach as Åke Andersson, and Martin Widerberg as Martin Andersson.

The films of Bo Widerberg: Raven’s End, Love 65, Heja Roland!, Elvira Madigan, The White Game, Ådalen 31, The Ballad of Joe Hill, Stubby, The Man on the Roof, Victoria, The Man from Majorca, The Serpent’s Way, and Love Lessons [Lust och fägring stor] (1995).

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,272

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