Television review A fascinating documentary about the more than 100-year-old queer history of Swedish cinema suffers from exaggeration when the TV version is scissored in less than an hour

Culture|Television review

In Sweden was made in 1916, perhaps the world’s first feature-length queer film, a work openly deviating from society’s sexual norms. This is what the Swede thinks Prejudice and pride documentary, which maps the country’s film history from the perspective of gender and sexual minorities.

That work was Mauritz Stillerin Wings. It may be interpreted as a description of a kind of father-son bond, but it can also be seen as a narrative of the gay love of the sculptor and this model.

Scholars open the content of the drama in an interesting way. Even before that, the docent of gender studies praises that an exceptional queer presence is already visible in Swedish film history. In support of this, a number of Stiller’s contemporaries are listed – Greta Garbo and Selma Lagerlöf at the forefront – which brought new angles to film narration.

In the documentary instead, it is not said that Stiller was born in Finland and lived here in his twenties. So you can bang on the rainbow shackles on the home couch.

There is also a clear weakness in the program associated with the rich queer film harvest: how to deal with more than a hundred years of margin history in a documentary cut for less than an hour for television? The duration of the original document is at least 99 minutes.

A careful documentary series would undoubtedly have better supported the argument for a diverse history and its significance.

Now Prejudice and pride more reminiscent of a leap over decades. And yet, these are also very necessary leaps. In addition to researchers, the authors, Actors and Editors will have a voice.

Sometimes the narration stops at some theme. For example, cross-dressing and the morals of the 1950s about the youth of the hult get their own moments.

A few factors are also presented. Researchers wondered if Garbo was lesbian or bisexual, which seems unnecessary. Ingmar Bergmanin queer-themed films are listed for a long time, and the point is accentuated by excerpts from those works shown alongside.

Documentary filmmakers Eva Beling has previously made Bergman a couple of TV shows.

Prejudice and pride is not as manageable as a Netflix document, for example Disclosure, which tells the story of American film from the perspective of transgenderism. However, it is definitely worth a look: there are plenty of fascinating footage, thanks to the abundant film samples, and even those who are familiar with the subject will get new names on their watch list.

On Wednesday on the same channel And Then We Danced -movie director Levan Akin gets a small space at the end. She has time to open the starting points for a little of her fine dance drama.

Prejudice and pride, Fem at 11.32 pm and Yle Areena. (K16)