The retirement home is arranging a birthday party for Allan Karlsson,
who has reached the grand age of 100! Even a very large birthday cake with the
correct amount of candles can’t really raise Allan’s enthusiasm for a
celebration. So this grand old centenarian climbs out his window and makes his
escape, accidentally taking another mans suitcase with him on a bus journey to a
nearby village. He befriends the ex stationmaster and the pair discover that
the suitcase contains a very large amount of drug money. This discovery sets in
motion an adventure that involves the police, a dangerous biker gang, a mature
student and an elephant along with its female keeper! During this journey we
also learn, using flashbacks and a voice over narration, that Allen is an
explosives expert and throughout his eventful life has been involved in some of
the most important events of the 20th century and has meet many of
the powerful players in these events including Truman, Stalin, Franco and Einstein.
This best selling debut novel by Jonas Jonasson condenses
into a very engaging and quirky Swedish farce. The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (2013)
is directed by Stockholm born Felix Herngren and stars 50 year old Robert
Gustafsson a very well known Swedish comedian and one of the main stays of a
comedy group called ‘Killingganet’. According to many UK film critics this movie
is not a laugh out load funny, well someone should have told last nights
audience at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre because the laughter was at
time’s drowning out dialog, thankfully we had subtitles for most of the movie!
It brings to mind the similar humour found in the Icelandic movie Bjarnfredarson
(2009) and the gory black humour of the Jo Nesbo penned Jackpot
(2011) both of which, and along with this latest film, I found extremely entertaining.
An elephant being feed by the 100 year old man! |
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