The Guitar Mongoloid (2004)
Cast: Mikael Allu, Bjarne Gunnarsson, Erik Gustafsson
Director: Ruben Östlund
Country: Sweden
Genre: Drama
Websites: TIFF
Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for TIFF’s In Case of No Emergency: The Films of Ruben Östlund which runs from April 9th to April 14th. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.
A bored TV viewer flips through channels looking for something to incite the senses, but the safe nationalist pap being crooned by some Swedish Pat Boone isn’t going to do it. The unseen television viewer acts as our navigator through the world of Ruben Östlund’s The Guitar Mongoloid and he surfs the sin waves of the analog ether in search of something honest. Our first stop is the rooftop of some apartment complex where the satellite dishes are being attacked and deliberately misaligned by a young man acting out in a fit of boredom and the righteous hollow spite of youth. Once this mission is complete we follow the young man downtown where he fearlessly belts out a clumsy and earnest rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” to the bemusement of confused passers-by. This is a film for the souls that are in a constant state of unrest, the hopelessly idiosyncratic who carry out actions that disrupt the comfortable drudgery of daily existence and make the world a little more interesting through their destructive and creative impulses.
This is a film for the souls that are in a constant state of unrest, the hopelessly idiosyncratic who carry out actions that disrupt the comfortable drudgery of daily existence …
From bikers who obsess over their leather jackets and the silvery shimmer of freshly polished chrome to a woman performing her involuntary OCD rituals before she can leave the house, The Guitar Mongoloid is a verite fiction of characters behaving in odd ways that aren’t amplified for the sake of contrived drama. Hoodlums throw bicycles off of a pier with cowardly bravado that comes from boredom and peer pressure. Juvenile soccer players pause their practice to engage in synchronized Nazi salutes, pretending to be bold and confrontational within the safety of their school gymnasium. These eccentric characters are played with honest awkwardness that is sometimes grating but more often endearing and captivating. One gets the sense that the characterizations aren’t far removed from the personalities of the nonprofessional actors that are playing them, fleshing out a slightly offbeat cinematic world that is just as strange as the one we live in.
Through a series of awkward vignettes, the camera maintains a comfortable distance that places us in a voyeuristic vantage while creating masterful compositions of the fictional city of Jöteborg.
Through a series of awkward vignettes, the camera maintains a comfortable distance that places us in a voyeuristic vantage while creating masterful compositions of the fictional city of Jöteborg. Scenes of public transportation beautifully illustrate malaise and isolation as riders in train cars communicate with gestures through the glass as the connected cars constantly shift angles as they are pulled through the streets. We are all ultimately isolated in our own vessels as our consciousness is pulled through existence, limited by the imperfections in our ability to perceive the world and communicate our thoughts to others. Some have the additional obstacle of unintentional social proclivities that put them just out of sync from the rest of society as they desperately seek human connection in a world that belongs to the unafflicted. They unintentionally annoy and unwillingly incite, drawing scornful looks and hushed insults from the “normal” folk that want to carry out their mundane lives without complications caused by weirdos and misfits.
Using documentary conventions in a loose narrative structure, The Guitar Mongoloid blurs the lines between truth and fiction to show that the world needs its outcasts and misfits to add to a cultural tapestry that would otherwise be drab and limited to the lifeless crooning of stuffed suits with snappy haircuts. Through its series of loosely connected sketches that are sometimes painfully awkward and other times heartbreaking, we are given the opportunity to empathize with weird souls struggling for acceptance and fueled by the need for expression.
Using documentary conventions in a loose narrative structure, The Guitar Mongoloid blurs the lines between truth and fiction to show that the world needs its outcasts and misfits to add to a cultural tapestry that would otherwise be drab and limited to the lifeless crooning of stuffed suits with snappy haircuts.
