Truly Dreadful Film

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This is not a "public gratification" movie - don't watch it if you must have a happy ending. Also, it's subtitled (the subtitles were large and easy to read, yet did not detract from the film).It is a powerful and moving story of a woman, a talented violinist, dealing with Alzheimer's disease as she watches it ravage her husband, a renowned composer. It details her journey from having a fully functioning, healthy, loving husband, to the hard reality of taking care of him as he gets worse and worse. There are heart-wrenching scenes as he declines and his disease takes over his brain. As his wife, she is determined to keep him home as long as she can, but as he knows her less and less, it becomes impossible. We watch as the transformation takes place in her: From loving wife, to care-taker, to nurse-mother, and eventually to accepting the inevitable. It's amazing to watch how she adapts to each stage, and it is done incredibly well.I was completely engrossed in this film from the moment I started watching it. I found it beautifully done. It is worth watching.

This is a beautiful film, where Sven Wollter makes one of his greatest performances. But I can't see any any artistic reasons to give Viveka Seldahl a guldbagge for her contribution - she makes the lines as if they didn´t really engaged her (more as if she read them aloud from a script). And the language of the female doctor is definitely not natural spoken language. For example: today in Sweden, even doctors don´t say "herr Fischer" (Mr Fischer) to their patients, they say the first name. (Maybe the film makers were influenced by the American way of thinking and talking.) But - as a whole, the film is very well done and definitely worth seeing.

This was a very real and harrowing film. I went with misgivings since I knew what the subject was about, but fell under the spell cast by director Bille August. This story rings true from the beginning. The film is a lovely love story between Barbara and Martin, played superbly by Viveka Seldahl and Sven Wottter.Barbara, obviously is dealt a blow when the Alzheimer is diagnosed but she proceeds to deal with it in her own terms. Little did she know that her marriage to Martin would turn into the nightmare it did. How do you stop loving and doing for that person you thought about spending the rest of your life with?The Alzheimer turns Martin into a vegetable. His mind is gone. From the brilliant composer and director, he becomes another person completely different from the person we met at the beginning of the film. Most critics in New York keep comparing this film with Iris. It is very unfair, because obviously all Alzheimers cases are different and don't have to reflect in this case, what went in Iris Murdoch's mind. I have to give credit to the director, Mr. August, who has not taken the easy approach and documents the progress in a very dignified manner. All the performances are on key. The extended families of these couple are very strong behind the parents, which is something very rare to find these days.

While `A song for Martin' is a powerful movie, it is also a sort of impotent one. One of the hobbyhorses of my high school literature teacher was to make us understand the difference between what is tragic and dramatic. A car accident is tragic. A car going over a cliff driven by someone fulfilling his inescapable destiny is drama. Alzheimer's is a tragic disease, but it is not drama. Unavoidable is not a substitute for inescapable. You cannot have drama without participation while participation is the last thing you can expect from someone suffering from the disease. This is a very well made movie. Acting is superb; cinematography is fine. I learned from it everything I would ever care to know about Alzheimer's, but I still left the theatre with an empty feeling. The story is sad, the loss is painful and love conquers everything but I had no revelations. I received information, from which I only gained knowledge, not real gut wrenching understanding. I never cared much about acted documentaries and this film never really rose above that.`A song for Martin' has a very promising start. Passionate love at the age of 50/60 is full of dramatic potential. For a while I thought that is what the movie will be about, but I was wrong. There are hints of dramatic conflict but they are never explored and from the moment Martin is diagnosed, the story turns purely didactic. Dealing with such a situation also has dramatic potentials but this movie choose to concentrate on the evolution of the illness. Is that bad? I don't know, but gaining this sort of knowledge is not what I expect from art.Should you see this movie? I think so. You will learn a lot about the illness most of us fear the most. Just do not expect more. See it for what it is: an animated illustration of the disease. For that, it is perfect.