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Anna Eriksson E                                


In Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice of Time, Tarkovsky recalls Ovid and Engels: “Ovid wrote that art lies in not being noticed” and “Engels emphasized that the better the creator’s vision is hidden, the better for the work of art.”

Anna Eriksson’s film E is brilliantly lingering and unflinchingly bold, even witty. In her films, Eriksson relies on strong visuality, the subconscious, and the inexhaustible flow of associations.

In her latest film E, Eva Volger (Anna Eriksson), as the Prime Minister of Finland, performs an anasyrma at a Nobel ceremony. In ancient Greece, an anasyrma was seen as a symbolic gesture conveying power and shock—one that exposes, unsettles, and forces the audience to confront a reality that the spectacle seeks to conceal.

Next, we see Eva Volger wandering in the desert. Soon, her answering machine is flooded with messages. These messages and phone prologues carry the film into ever stranger spheres, functioning purely as a force holding the narrative together. As in some of Eriksson’s earlier films, the fundamental tone of meditative cinema is present, and the traces of surrealism continue to guide the work. Iconographic imagery is also abundant; every gesture and moment carries its meaning.

“We talked all night about human dignity and freedom, and the coming war—the greatest war in post-modern and post-original times...”

Is the desert in the film a state of mind… a laborious journey into the self… or perhaps the disappearance of ultimate meaning? Or what, after all, is the human role?

Anna Eriksson’s screenplay teeters at times at the heart of poetic expression, while the phone prologues introduce inner movement and dark humor into the events. Brilliant mise-en-scène, complemented by a smoothly, calmly moving camera.

“I would gladly make love with you, Eva, but I am playing chess—with Satan, at my place.”

8/10

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