Värn (2025)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 85 minuten
Alternative title: Redoubt
Country:
Sweden / Finland / Netherlands / United Kingdom / Switzerland
Directed by: John Skoog
Stars: Denis Lavant, Michalis Koutsogiannakis and Livia Millhagen
IMDb score:
7,1 (141)
Releasedate: 20 September 2025
This movie is not available on US streaming services.
Värn plot
Farmer Karl-Göran Persson lives a secluded life in a village. When the inhabitants are informed by the government of possible attacks by the Soviet army, Persson takes action. He converts his house into a fortified bunker as a safe haven where the villagers are welcome.
Actors and actresses
Reviews & comments
Mr_Marty
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- 48 messages
- 224 votes
Karl-Göran (Denis Lavant) is an old-fashioned farmhand from a rural drama: a bit strange, perhaps intellectually challenged, but incredibly strong and an infinitely better do-it-yourselfer than I will ever be. He takes the Swedish government's Cold War propaganda—War is Coming!—extremely seriously and begins building his own nuclear bunker. With walls meters thick, postal tubes for all the families in the village and the king, but also with windows. He will brick those up when the time comes.
That is the film: Karl-Göran building his stronghold, interspersed with scenes from life in the farming village. There isn't much more plot than that. Skoog does try to craft some kind of ending, in which Karl-Göran realizes he has become trapped in the atomic bunker in his head - and just waiting, waiting, waiting for what never comes - but that didn't come across as entirely convincing to me.
Still, it is not a bad film, especially since Denis Lavant is the ideal lead actor. His face is weathered by now and his body even leaner than it already was, but he still has that slight spring in all his movements that suggests enormous strength in his thin muscles. And he simply delivers his lines himself in Swedish; thankfully, no Italian dubbing here. Beautiful black-and-white visuals too, a bit of a Tarr-esque atmosphere at times. And every now and then just that touch of humor needed to keep the pace going.
But it is also often a familiar take on this kind of arthouse rural drama. The likeable eccentric, the annoying teenagers, the village festival, the voiceover of someone telling it as if it were a childhood memory: you can picture it all. It really shouldn't have been longer than the 85 minutes it lasts.
(Seen at De Uitkijk)
Translated from Dutch · View original
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