a smiley in the title :-) OR Männer im Wasser

I was about 6, and Tita one year younger, when my mother asked us in Tita’s room a tough question for a child, at least for a child in our age. She told us “I am moving out today. I am going to live with your grandparents; do you want to stay here with you father or do you want to come with me?” Tita and I picked up the second choice. Tomás wasn’t asked, he simply came with us; he was not even two-years-old.

In the years after, I did have the feeling my father made a strong effort to re-bond with us. He later got married. Once, it may have been 1995, he took my sister and me to the cinema to see “The father of the bride”. A screwball comedy in which the main character (a man in the mid-life crisis) tries everything to improve the relationship with his daughter. I also remember that the movie had a happy end and that my father cried. Tita and I found that kitsch and funny.

Last Saturday Hannes and I went to the cinema to see “Allt Flytter” a Swedish film translated in German as “Männer im Wasser” (Men in water), but I think the English title is “the swimsuit issue”.

Allt Flytter is a visually beautiful (as all Swedish movies I have seen) and a fine comedy. The main theme is actually about friends and the sacrifices they make to save their friendship. There are many problems to solve in the movie (all of them have to do with the mid-life crisis), however the characters manage to solve them all in their very own way, in a way I haven’t seen in mid-life crisis-comedies.

The situations in the movie are so human and natural, and friendship plays such an essential role that I had to avoid crying at least three times. I did my best because I don’t like to be seen when crying…and Hannes was aside!

After seeing one of the most beautiful movie-endings, we went out of the cinema and Hannes told me that the film made his eyes wet several times, I thanked him for saying it first, and then I told him that the same happened to me.

I am happy my sister was not there, because she would have laughed like hell if she would have seen us there with glassy eyes, she would have laughed the way we laughed about our father back then…no, I know her, she would have laughed even louder :-D

Watching a beautiful film about friendship with my best friend was one of the nicest things I’ve experienced so far.