"Kvarteret Korpen" or "Raven's End" is a Swedish black-and-white movie from 1963, so this one is already way over half a century old now and the writer and director is Bo Widerberg, perhaps the second most known Swedish filmmaker of all time and this was an early breakthrough film for him gaining some nice attention including an Academy awards nomination. Funnily Sweden's undisputed number 1 Ingmar Bergman lists this as one of his all-time favorites. The movie runs for 95 minutes approximately and includes a relative small cast, the younger ones still alive today, who play people living in a particular not very well-off working class block in Sweden. The year is 1936 and you hear right away with the firstg words that Hitler is in power in Germany, but afterward politics is not much of a subject anymore until the very end. Instead it is all about a father-son story. The father is really struggling with failed business, alcoholism and not even capable of delivering a few flyers in the neighborhood. Instead he lies drunk on the sofa and lets the wife do the job, so he won't lose it. The son is aspiring, but clearly scared to end up in the same dark spot like his father. He wants to have a career in writing and travels with the train to a promising job interview. But things don't go right and how he was drawn in with his father before that in perhaps most memorable scene from the film involving cigars too, the outcome is just very sobering. The consequence is eventually that he also ends up drunk after a night of booze with his father, but in the end makes the perhaps right decision to leave them before he gets pulled in a hole where he won't come out again. Going a bit back in time, it is clearly obvious that the father tries to convince his son that life is not all bad and that they are having money to life a fulfilling existence. But it is really all just make-believe and the son sees right through. But despite all these conflicts, love is in the air and you can see that even if there are arguments the family members care for each other. At times, deeply even like in the scene when they all sit one on another in that armchair.
Add to that a story line about the son having gotten his childhood friend pregnant, so his path seems predecided, but it is obvious she cares more about him than he does about her, so it is not surprising that in the end he also has no problems with leaving her behind. In general, I found the son rather unlikable, also the way how he acts early on towards that old lady who cared for him when he was a little boy. But it may also have had to do with how insignificant the character seemed despite being in almost every scene. He mostly feels like a vehicle to propel the performance of his father who is by far the most memorable thing here. But also in the touching scene with his mother near the end, the woman's performance when we find out what happened with her stillborn is better than everything by the younger actor in this film. Back to politics, this was fairly interesting at the end as we could see the situations of people and how these were crucial in getting national politics movements into force like the National Socialist Party. There is also talk about how the desperation and hopelessness from the father drove him into making these choice on who to elect mentioned by the son. But he has hope for the mother still. All in all, this was a very bleak and depressing film from start to finish as financial, emotional and general despair is omnipresent. But I would not that is why I rate the film relatively low. It's rather that the last 15-20 minutes that are kinda worth seeing are not good enough either to sit through all the mediocrity before that. "Nothing is happening" is not a valid criticism by any means, but it needs more than one good characterization (the father. Sixtenn for example is also a complete nothing character) to make me forget about all the other mediocrities. I give this film a thumbs-down and my suggestion is that you something else instead. Nowhere near the best of Widerberg I have seen and he sure has many movie that strongly differ from each other not only in story, but also in style. I disagree with the pretty high imdb rating. This is not one of his best at all in my opinion.
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