"Pingpongkingen", a northern drama
Two teenage brothers Rille and Erik, living with their divorced mom in the northern part of Sweden, awaits one of the seldom visits of their mostly absent dad and hero, a professional diver, during the winter break.
The older brother Rille is a big fan of pingpong (table tennis) which he considers being the "last remaining democratic sport. One bounce on each side". However, one day Rille finds out about the secret that his mother and her boyfriend "Väg-Gunnar" have kept from him and Erik, which puts him in a moral dilemma. Should he tell his brother?
This movie is very funny, especially in how it depicts the stereotypical restrained northern way people speak and act. What to say when the might-be-girlfriend shows her pencil drawings of nude hunks and ask what you think? "Nice shading", of course...
Trailer (in swedish). Premiere february 8th.
/O.K.
3 comments:
When I was in 4th-6th grade, we played pingpong all the time during class breaks in our class room. We didn't have a real table, rackets, or a net, so we improvised. We played the kind were you are many players and line up around the table to play one shot at each side - if you miss you are out, so you start with many players and in the end end up with only two and you have to rush around to the other side all the time.
We used a school table, longer than wide, and made a very functional net of the Bibles we had in the classroom. The Bibles were stood on their long edge, so the spines were towards the top. A few of us had rackets, but most of us used thin but sturdy childrens' books that were kept for reading in the classroom. I remember one teacher wouldn't let us use the bibles, but most didn't care. It was fun! This was around 1980.
Oh, and when we didn't play pingpoing, we either played soccer, 'brannboll', or disappeared into the woods to play war with imaginary weapens made out of sticks. Everybody wanted to be the Americans, and a few boys took turns to be Germans. It was all very innocent. I still remember getting 5 Swedish Kronor for eating real pine needles in a bet against some of the tough boys.
A little while ago I heard a mom describing how her kid didn't play "war", like she did in that age. The kids played "G8-meeting riots" instead.
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