The Women on the Roof

'The light...See how it comes in. Licht, light, lumière. But Nordic light is the most beautiful in Europe'. If this sounds like Woody Allen satirising Bergman, it isn't, but you're close. In fact this is a first feature by the son of great Swedish cameraman (and Bergman/Allen collaborator) Sven Nykvist. We are in Stockholm, 1914. Anna (Bergström) is a sophisticated, tempestuous photographer with a mysterious history; innocent, timid Linnea (Ooms) gradually falls under her spell, and into her bed, before Anna's past interrupts their idyll. This falls into most of the pitfalls associated with the continental art movie, flirting as it does with pornography and proving strictly a tease on the intellectual front. The pensive piano score and pretty photography are par for the course, but the film, like the vapid Linnea, only threatens to come to life when events take a macabre turn towards the end; even then, the effect is chilly and rather too pat to convince.