Fucking Amal

Elin Olsson(Alexandra Dahlström) is the girl everyone thinks is going to be in trouble. She's already been labeled a slut, even though she's never done much more than third base, while her sister seems more aggressively sexual (while also the less attractive of the two). She finds men boring. Agnes (Rebecka Liljeberg) has lived in Amal for two years and the only friend she's come close to making is a girl in a wheelchair. Both are so low on the social totem pole that they will turn on each other hoping to somehow get away from the stink of their outcast status. Agnes is also in love with Elin, and tells no one. During a birthday party for Agnes (more arranged by Agnes's mom then anyone else), Elin shows up out of boredom and on a bet from her sister kisses Agnes, which shatters the young girl's mind. But there's something there. But Elin can't come out because she is among the popular kids, and does have a social status to maintain.

Lukas Moodysson's feature debut is one of those films that is a small slice of perfection. It also suggests that certain ideas, moods, and beliefs transcend geographical boundries. I got a collection of his films as a gift, and I think the person who sent them to me (who's read some of my scripts) knew what he was doing. Pretentious as it may be to suggest, but I share some ideas with Moodysson in that we are interested in similar modes of storytelling: there's something to stripping a story and characters to their truths that can make a film transcendent, and what I have tried to accomplish with something I've written is very much what he filmed.

I think Fucking Amal is a fucking masterpiece.