Elsa and Fred

I recommend Elsa and Fred without having seen it. What I’ve seen, however, is the audience and their faces when they came out after a screening at Films from the South. I waited for my wife in the café at Filmens hus, on the exact spot where the exit from Tancred let people out. Since I waited for someone, it so happened that I often looked in the direction of the exit. From inside the theatre I could hear a vague hum of dialogue and music, far too weak for me to hear what was said, or judge if the film music was good or bad, unfortunately. On a couple of occasions I heard laughter. I waited and was relieved when the doors opened and people got out. At this point in time I knew nothing about the film other than what could be read from the audience’s faces, as they appeared, while the end credits rolled and the music wound down. Some of them looked captivated, others were quietly cheerful, many cried or had tears in their eyes. Lovers exchanged glances. An elderly man stopped, shook his head slightly, in wonderment. Later I learned that Elsa and Fred was about an elderly couple in exile in Madrid, who experienced both love and her dream to go to Rome to bathe in the Trevi Fountain. I believe it to be a marvellous film. Hans Petter Blad