Aprilsmörker
AIMDb Rating
28K
Your Rating
Popularity
1
“Det är ljuset som ger sig av först.”
A husband and wife retreat to her family's island summer house on the Stockholm archipelago at the wrong time of year — early April, when the cold sea is still grey and the village hasn't reopened. Over five days of long silences, longer walks, and one unwanted visitor, the marriage they have been carefully managing for fifteen years comes apart in the dim half-light of a Swedish spring that hasn't yet arrived.
- Director
- Bo Halvarsson
- Writers
- Bo Halvarsson
- Stars
- Eva Sundberg · Lennart Brink · Margareta Holm ›
Top Cast (4)
Eva Sundberg
Karin Lindh
Lennart Brink
Anders Lindh
Margareta Holm
Greta
Olof Wennström
Pastor Forsberg
User Reviews
5 reviewsHalvarsson at his most exact
by art_house_devotee
Spare even by his standards, this is a film of empty rooms and unfinished sentences. Eva Sundberg's central performance is one of the great quiet acts of Scandinavian cinema. Devastating and inevitable.
Cold and clear
by world_cinema_devotee
If you respond to Bergman you'll respond to this. Halvarsson is his own filmmaker but the lineage is honest. The seasonal use of the half-grey April light is genuinely structural.
Beautiful but punishing
by moderate_viewer
I admired this more than I enjoyed it. The film commits to its mood with no relief, no comic beat, no breath. Some will love that; I wanted one window in the wall.
A perfect minor masterpiece
by cinephile_arno
Halvarsson made smaller films than his contemporaries and was rewarded with smaller audiences. This deserves rediscovery. The visit-from-the-pastor scene is fifteen minutes of held breath.
Bleak, sure, but skilled
by scandi_film_lover
Every shot of the archipelago in early April could be a postcard from a depression. The marriage's dissolution is observed with surgical clarity. Not exactly fun but properly made.
Details
- Release date
- September 22, 1978 (Sweden)
- Country of origin
- Sweden, Denmark
- Language
- Swedish
- Also known as
- April Dark · Ténèbres d'Avril · Aprilfinsternis
- Filming locations
- Möja Island, Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden · Sandhamn, Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden · Filmstaden, Råsunda, Solna, Sweden
- Production companies
- Nordlys Filmproduktion · Halvarsson Studio · Dansk Filminstitut
Box office
- Budget
- $540,000 (estimated)
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $8,200
- Gross US & Canada
- $142,000
- Gross worldwide
- $880,000
Technical specs
- Runtime
- 1h 48m
- Color
- Color
- Sound mix
- Dolby Digital
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
