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6.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Pojkarna på Storholmen remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have a soft spot for dusty, black-and-white Swedish comedies where everyone talks way too fast and someone is always playing an accordion, this is probably your jam. Anyone else will likely find it incredibly loud and a bit confusing.
The whole thing is about a very religious family living out on a quiet island in the Stockholm archipelago. They get hired to look after some "wild youth" girls from the big city, and as you can guess, absolute chaos immediately happens.
Honestly, the plot is just a lazy excuse to have people fall into the water and run around. It reminds me a bit of the playful, chaotic energy in Thanks for the Buggy Ride, but with way more fish and thick island accents.
There is this one actor, Fridolf Rhudin, who plays one of the locals. His face is just incredibly expressive, like his eyes are constantly trying to escape his skull. 😅
Every time he is on screen, the movie gets ten times better because he does not even need dialogue to make you laugh. He has this weird, floppy way of walking that feels totally improvised.
There is a scene where one of the city girls is trying to act all sophisticated while eating, but she clearly has no idea what she is doing. The camera just hangs on her face for a solid twenty seconds while she struggles with a piece of herring. It is so awkward but I couldn't look away.
The audio quality is pretty rough, which is typical for 1932 I guess. Sometimes the background music swells so loud it drowns out what people are saying, but you really aren't missing any deep philosophy here.
The girls from Stockholm are supposed to be these "dangerous" troublemakers, but they mostly just look like they want to play harmless pranks and dance. It is a lot like the mischievous main character in Some Tomboy, where "rebellion" just means being slightly annoying to grumpy old people.
The island scenery is actually really nice, even in grainy black and white. You can almost smell the salty water and the wet wooden docks. ⚓
There is a weird subplot about a local romance that feels like it was written in five minutes on a napkin. I completely forgot who was supposed to be dating who by the end of the movie.
But hey, the movie doesn't care about logic and neither should you. It is just a light, breezy piece of history that doesn't demand much from your brain.
Watch it if you want to travel back to 1930s Sweden for an hour or so. Just be prepared for a lot of accordion music.
IMDb —
1923
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