THRILLER – A CRUEL PICTURE (1974)
Last night I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Christina Lindberg talk about her career at the Gothenburg International Film Festival. Now, if you grew up in Sweden somewhere around the 80´s and were a boy, you´re bound to know who she is. Hell, if you lived anywhere in the world and were a boy or man, you´re bound to know who she is. She´s one of the most famous nude models we´ve had and she also starred in such classics as “Anita: the shocking account of a young nymphomaniac”, “Journey to Japan”, “Exposed” and “What Schoolgirls Don´t Tell”. Hell, she was even a Penthouse model along with Michael Caine at one point, she told the audience last night! But as we all know, the movie she´s most famous for is the amazing “Thriller – a cruel picture”. That´s why I thought it would be suitable to direct your attention towards this movie once again. If you haven´t seen it, you should! You know, Sweden can produce other things than somber, morose dramas. This definitely kicks Bergman´s ass. So strap yourself in, here we go!
The few of you depraved souls out there who actually take the time to read these rants and recommendations might´ve noticed that I have a soft spot for the revenge genre. The theme of revenge is one of the richest there is when it comes to creating a good story. A lot of questions are automatically raised when dealing with revenge, like “how does it affect a human being?” or “is it really worth it?” Heavy stuff, friends, but you know what? The theme of revenge is also a great basis for creating a kick-ass movie. One of the greatest films in Swedish history deals with this theme. I´m sure that many of you have heard about it already ´cause Tarantino (damn, there goes my promise from a couple of days back!) brought some attention to this film a few years back when he released the two “Kill Bill”-movies. He talked about how he had based Daryl Hannah´s look on the lead in a Swedish film called “Thriller: A Cruel Picture”.
So, you might´ve heard about this one but if you don´t live in Sweden and aren´t a movie obsessed freak like me, there´s no way that you can know exactly how much impact this movie can have on one´s life and how legendary it is in certain circles. That´s why I am here: to give you the lowdown, the hard truth… Pour yourself a drink cause here we go!
Here´s the thing about Swedish movies: until recently there were no genre filmmaking going on, whatsoever! The Swedish film industry is big on drama but we have the giant shadow of Ingmar Bergman hanging over everyone, so there´s not very often we get a good, solid piece of drama-filmmaking, either. However, we do get a lot of bad comedies… A LOT of bad comedies, but no genre movies! You can imagine how frustrating this was for a young boy like myself. To quote Inspector Closeau: “It was hell down there”.
But guess what? Then someone told me about a Swedish film that is actually banned! A Swedish film banned? What the hell? This couldn´t be true, I told myself. Supposedly it was called “Thriller: A Cruel Picture”, but we weren´t sure. No one I knew had ever seen it. There were lots of stories circulating about it. Apparently, someone knew someone who had a cousin who had a boyfriend who spent a year in the states and he had managed to see it and he said that it was the sickest thing he´d ever seen. There were scenes with hardcore porn in it and in one scene the director had used real corpses. Holy shit, was this really something I wanted to see? Hell yeah! When you´re that age, that´s like giving you a dare. No, strike that: it´s like giving you a double-dare! It´s like the movie gods were looking down upon us and mocking and taunting us: “You don´t have the guts to see this one, you sweaty teenage freak! Mouahahahaha!”
Well, I did have the guts to see it. But I had to wait more than ten years until it finally happened.
So, flash forward ten years and a lot of things have changed. I survived puberty, got an education, was engaged for a brief while and then met a much prettier and nicer girl, among other things. All these things pale in comparison to the enormous, fantastic news that reached me one day: Synapse Films was releasing an uncut version of “Thriller” on DVD! Holy Christ! You can imagine the joy that my bruised and battered heart were filled with. At second thought, I don´t think you can. This was it; the holy grail of movies; the one film that I hadn´t managed to get a hold of. Remember, kids, this was before the internet. I know it´s a stretch for your imagination but there were a time when you couldn´t just go online and download every film ever made. A happier time, a time when you actually had to hunt down the movies you really wanted to see. That was almost as big a part of actually watching the damn film. Internet has killed the cult movies. Internet killed obscurity… and apparently, video killed the radiostar, in case you didn´t know that.
Eight times out of ten I´ll admit that I was disappointed but every now and then you´d come upon a real gem in the video store. I´m talking about the straight-to-video, bottom shelf titles that no one recommended to you cause no one had seen them (“Malone” starring Burt Reynolds and “Retroactive” starring James Belushi springs to mind). You actually felt like YOU had discovered that film, that you were the first one who was seeing a film that no one knew existed. THAT thrill, my friends, has sadly disappeared. It´s been years since I felt it ´cause nowadays you know about and hear about every movie ever made all over the world. Like I said, you got the internet and the reviews of the previews, about a year before the damn film is actually released. There´s no mystery to movies nowadays. You know everything about them before they´re ever released and when was the last time you happened upon a movie you had heard nothing about and decided to give it a chance and lo and behold, it then turned out to be great? Well, it was quite a while for me… My heart is bleeding, friends.
But anyway, now you know that I´m a nostalgic, bitter young man but enough about that. Back to “Thriller”. Synapse released it and when I finally got the DVD in my sweaty hand, I was shaking. That day should be declared a national holiday if I had any pull in this country but sadly, I don´t! When you have spent so much time building up an illusion about a film for as long as I did with this one, you´re bound to be disappointed, right? Well, kind of…
During this time I had happily come to grow enormously as a human being and become so much wiser that it was almost frightening. That´s why I realized that no matter how much ass this movie kicks, it was still made back in the 70´s, in Sweden none the less, so how violent could it be? There´s no way in hell that it´ll deliver on my expectations. But a strange thing happened. It delivered on so many levels (but not the violence, I´ll give you that. Happy?) that I was actually surprised at how good this movie really was. Since then, I´ve seen it quite a few times and I think it´s a goddamn masterpiece! It is definitely unlike anything ever produced in this country, before or after, that´s for damn sure.
I just now realize that I haven´t had the common courtesy to let you know what the movie is all about. Here´s a brief summary: Frigga (played by Christina Lindberg, who I am sure most of you out there already are familiar with) is a young woman who was raped by a stranger as a child. Suffering from shock from this incident, she becomes a mute. One day, she misses the bus into town. A seemingly nice gentleman turns out to be a real scumbag and kidnaps her (hey, that´s no way to treat a lady!). The scumbag (brilliantly portrayed by Heinz Hopf) has Frigga hooked on heroine in order for the man to control her. She is forced to work in his brothel. Sweet Lord, if only she hadn´t missed that bus!
No matter how evil and despicable the brothel owners may be, they aren´t above letting their prisoners have a day off. This is Sweden, don´t forget that. The unions were big here in the 70´s. That´s why Frigga gets Mondays off, they know that she will return no matter what. After all, she´s got a heroin-habit to support, right? But you see, Frigga starts spending her days off learning karate. She also learns how to handle a shotgun and drive like a goddamn stunt driver. This is one feisty lady we´re talking about here. Sweet, sweet revenge…
That´s the set up for this very original film. I´ll admit that the film´s pace doesn´t quite hold up by today´s standards but it has so much else going for it that I´m willing to look beyond that and focus on the many genius things about it instead. One of the things that elevate it above many of the other rape-revenge films produced during this period is the way it is shot. Director Bo-Arne Vibenius has a really good eye and he manages to make excellent use of the locations. Especially during the film´s final scenes, when Frigga (or One-Eye, as they call her), all dressed in black with a matching eye-patch and equipped with a shotgun, metes out her revenge in a small harbor. It looks absolutely amazing. The image of Christina Lindberg walking towards the camera in that black leather coat is one that will stay with you for a long, long time.
Another reason why “Thriller” has such a reputation is that it exists in different versions. If you see the one called “Thriller: A Cruel Picture” you will without a doubt notice the fact that during the sex scenes there´s inserts of hardcore pornography. If you watch this version and don´t notice these scenes, you might have a bit of a problem. If that´s the case, you might need to lay off the porn for a while. Then you have become very, very jaded, friend. Anyway, these were later added by director Vibenius without the actor´s knowledge. On the different nerd-sites on the internet, where films like this one are discussed, you will often hear disappointment over the fact that it isn´t Christina Lindberg herself in these scenes. I find this pretty strange. I will not argue with the fact that Miss Lindberg is a very pretty lady but these scenes aren´t the least arousing. Hey kids, she´s a prostitute against her will! She´s basically being raped! In other words, Vibenius takes pornographic material and (at least in my eyes) manages to make it look awful and revolting. Pretty artistic, right? But at the same time he gets to show some T&A ´cause after all, this is an exploitation film. So depending on how you wanna tackle this film; if you wanna go the cultural, high-brow, intellectual way like I just did or if you wanna go the usual, sleazy, cheap thrill-seeking way like I usually do, you´ll still get something out of this one either way.
You shouldn´t get your hopes up too much regarding the karate fight-scenes. I think it´s a safe bet to say that Ms. Lindberg isn´t a martial artist, so there´s not that much Bruce Lee-style action going on. Instead, Vibenius opted to shoot these scenes in incredibly slow moving slow motion, which makes for some quite bizarre imagery. There´s almost a feeling of weightlessness during these fights. It´s not what you usually get in this kind of film. I mentioned at the beginning that there was a rumor circulating that a real corpse was used during one scene. The scene I´m talking about is the one where Frigga becomes “One-Eye” and she has her eye cut out. The reason this rumor started is basically like it happened with the infamous “Cannibal Holocaust”-impaling scene. It´s just so well done that a movie with this budget could not afford an effect this good. Apparently, Christina Lindberg admitted in an interview conducted in 2006 that they did use a real corpse for this scene. They filmed it in a hospital and used a suicide-victim. To be honest, I find this pretty hard to believe. I think that maybe Miss Lindberg wants to embellish the myth about this film. If they did use a real corpse then we´re dealing with some pretty sick and twisted individuals here.
After “Thriller”, director Vibenius made another film, “Breaking Point”. I´ve never seen this one but from what I´ve heard there´s supposed to be even more hardcore sex and it´s supposed to be even dirtier and grittier. I don´t know much about it except the fact that it´s about a man who apparently rapes and kills women. If this were to be released on DVD, I would definitely check it out but as it is now, that film holds no allure for me. I think it´s a shame that Vibenius hasn´t made any more films since, though. He obviously knows his way around a camera and I would´ve loved to see him make more films starring Christina Lindberg. Imagine a sequel to “Thriller”! I would love to see that. Imagine the voice-over on the trailer: “They call her One-Eye… and she´s back! And she´s angry!”
As a matter of fact, I had a chance to ask Lindberg about this and she said that Vibenius did speak about the sequel that he had planned but she also said that he did not have the ability to secure the financing. That aspect of the moviemaking business wasn´t his strong suit, which is a goddamn shame! At least we´ll always have Paris, huh?
So there you have it, “Thriller” is one of the few revenge-movies we have here in Sweden. Sure, Ingmar Bergman flirted with the genre with “The Virgin Spring” and although he managed to get a rape scene in there and it got remade as both “Last House on the Left” and the dreadful “Chaos”, I don´t think it qualifies as a worthy installment in the genre. It´s a good film, but hey… it´s definitely no “Thriller”! It´s one of a kind. Just like you are, friend. Don´t forget that. You´re unique!
Until next time: take scare!
Thomas