Coming of age satire, and much more

Review of Bert - Den siste oskulden / Bert - The Last Virgin (1995) movie, by Stefan Stenudd

The film is based on a series of immensely popular Swedish children's books, about the boy Bert, who is just hitting puberty and having the usual problems with it. But that's where the usual ends abruptly.

Well, not that he experiences so remarkably odd things, but the way it's all twisted into a wonderfully joyous satire. Bert's parents are so absurdly lame, the class bully so wonderfully monstrous, the class freak so ridiculously freaky, and so on. Bert himself - very well played by Martin Andersson - is quite odd, too, although looking like a very young Clark Kent.

Society outside of Bert's tiny teen troubles, also shows itself to be increasingly odd, almost surreal. And what shows on the TV set in the family living room is just as weird, upon examination.

It's a crazy world, simply, where Bert seems to be the only sane person - and he's not that very sane, either. In this amusement park of a suburb environment, with characters as grotesque as if seen through cracked lenses, the movie still manages to make some clever observations about boys, girls, sexual urges and anxieties, and all.

Stefan Stenudd
9 January 2003