CD: Jenny Wilson - Exorcism

Sexual assault and its aftermath are chronicled with chilling precision

Exorcism begins with a track titled “Rapin’”. Its lyrics tell of a late night walk home during which the drunk protagonist is sexually assaulted. “Did you pick me because there’s no one else around?” asks Jenny Wilson in an account of her own experience. Two days later she goes to a doctor and, as she puts it, “I had to show my body again”.

Tracking the attack and its aftermath, Exorcism is thematically testing. The closest parallel springing to mind is the 1982 single “The Boiler”, by Rhoda with the Special A.K.A. Wilson’s fifth album draws from being raped, the emotional, institutional – including attempting to identify the perpetrator from a police identity parade – and physical aftermath, and the damage caused to her self-esteem, perception of the world and other people. It has already charted in her native Sweden and the international release opens up her forthrightness to more widespread consideration. The album is an exorcism: an effort to cast out demons. She has had, it appears, a highly challenging last half-decade or so. Exorcism’s predecessor, 2013’s Demand the Impossible!, was recorded while Wilson underwent treatment for breast cancer.

The new album is about how its subject matter is presented rather than its lyrics alone. Like fellow Swedes The Knife – whose label she used to be with – she is a total musical artist for whom her adopted style of electropop is part of the overall picture. The lyrics, music, presentation and visuals are of a piece with one another. But the songs as such open the door. Musically, “Lo’ Hi’” brings to mind the early Normal fused with a less-fidgety Knife. The album closer “Forever Is a Long Time” is yearning pop with a radio-friendly melody. Songs are shot through with a gospel edge and can be taken on their own without comprehension of their lyrical substance.

Ultimately, whatever the other areas of interest, Exorcism is about Wilson’s experiences and her frank lyrics. This is an album to ponder and then be thankful for.

Overleaf: Watch the video for “Lo' Hi'” from Jenny Wilson’s Exorcism

Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words, BBC One review - emotional nomad with a fragile gift for joy

★★★★★ INGRID BERGMAN: IN HER OWN WORDS Intimate portrait of an emotional nomad

Imagine's intimate portrait of a Hollywood diva fills in the darkest shadows

Ever nursed an immoderate fondness for Ingrid Bergman? In Her Own Words, a bio-documentary released in the cinema then on DVD in 2016 and shown last night on BBC One as part of the Imagine... strand, was an entrancing, melancholy memoir in letters, diaries and above all personal footage.

The Square review - stylish, brilliantly acted satire

★★★★ THE SQUARE Ruben Östlund's Oscar-nominated assault on polite Swedish society

Ruben Östlund's Oscar-nominated assault on polite Swedish society

One of the oldest pleasures of cinema is the opportunity it gives us to look at beautiful people in beautiful places, possibly having beautiful sex. Often audiences get exactly what they came for but sometimes it isn’t exactly straightforward. Take The Square, the Oscar-nominated film from Swedish director Ruben Östlund that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year. Its cast includes Danish heart-throb Claes Bang (tipped as a potential James Bond), handsome Dominic West (of Wire fame) and lovely Elizabeth Moss (freed from her Handmaid’s Tale wimple). The setting is Stockholm’s fashionable art world so there’s a visual feast of ultra-cool art gallery interiors, gilded halls, luxury apartments, modernist offices and a Tesla slicing through streets familiar from all those Scandi noir series.

This isn’t a thriller, although it is certainly filled with jeopardy, and it isn’t a romance, although it has one of the most startling sex scenes I’ve seen since Toni Erdmann. Instead The Square is a post-modern farce – a string of terrible mishaps befalls museum director Christian (Claes Bang, pictured below) as he tries to hype a new exhibit and we watch his life spiral from cool to chaos. It’s also a satire, gleefully poking fun at the pretensions of the art world and liberal Swedes’ earnest efforts to promote a dialogue on immigration and racism.Claes Bang, The SquareBut most of all, The Square is brilliantly acted and very stylish, if at times just a little bit too pleased with how clever it is. To describe the plot in any detail would be to spoil the film’s unfolding pleasures; suffice to say there is a theft, inept revenge, social and professional humiliation, and an actor impersonating an ape who should make Andy Serkis a tad jealous.

Östlund is following up his disquieting hit Force Majeure and his budget has increased exponentially. For the first time he’s working with actors famous outside Scandinavia. But his directing style hasn’t changed – gruelling improvisations and multiple takes until the performance is just as he wants. Director of photography Frederik Wenzel's elegant shots are held at almost uncomfortable length; the audience is given plenty of time to observe closely each character as their thoughts and feelings flicker in front of our eyes.The SquareThere’s much clever framing too, marginal figures edging into our vision. The spaces Christian navigates are both claustrophobic and hallucinatory. Confusing, faintly disturbing peripheral sounds come from off-screen with no explanatory cut-aways to their source. Dialogue is kept naturalistic and doesn't get in the way of the actors – Aaron Sorkin does not haunt this script.

The noodling a cappella score is a touch irritating in its over-signalling of wit and the child actors lack credibility, but The Square finds Östlund at the top of his game. It should provide the most fun to be had in an art movie this month if not an art gallery (installation pictured above). And Claes Bang's English accent, a homage to David Bowie, is startlingly good. This Danish actor would have no problem squaring up to Bond.

@saskiabaron

Overleaf: watch the trailer for The Square

Matthew Sweet: Operation Chaos review - paranoia and insanity in the Cold War

★★★★ MATTHEW SWEET: OPERATION CHAOS The deep, dark, wittily told story of the Vietnam deserters who demonised Her Majesty

The deep, dark, wittily told story of the Vietnam deserters who demonised Her Majesty

In 2017 the documentary series The Vietnam War told the story, from soup to nuts, of America’s misadventure in south-east Asia. It now seems the comprehensive history may have missed some nuts out. Not that anyone would question the sanity of a deserter from the US Army in 1968. Seen on the ground and from the air, the hot front of the Cold War was no place to be.

Anna von Hausswolff: 'Forget about space and time, it's eternal and mysterious' - interview

ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF The Swedish singer-songwriter on her new album 'Dead Magic'

The Swedish singer-songwriter on her new album 'Dead Magic'

Considering the coal-dark nature of her music, it was unsurprising Sweden's Anna von Hausswolff was dressed entirely in black while meeting up at London’s Rough Trade East shop to talk about her new album Dead Magic. Less foreseeable was her sunny disposition and willingness to veer off topic. She happily explored what has brought her to this point and spoke enthusiastically about her inspirations.

CD: Fever Ray - Plunge

Swedish maverick returns after nearly a decade away with avant-electro-pop paean to sexual freedom

This album has been about in virtual form since last autumn but now receives physical release. In more ways than one. Since theartsdesk didn’t review it back then, its reappearance on CD and vinyl gives us an excuse to now. After all, Swedish musician Karin Dreijer – once of The Knife – is fascinating, an artist who pushes at the boundaries. She revived her Fever Ray persona last year amidst videos revelling in sci-fi weirdness and orgiastic BDSM imagery. Plunge is the musical life statement that follows.

Five years ago Dreijer divorced, shaking off the “Andersson” that once double-barrelled her name. She has since been exploring her mostly gay sexuality in an untrammelled physical manner, according to both interviews she’s given and the lyrics here. Where Fever Ray’s eponymous debut album, nine years ago, was morose, the sound of a woman trapped, depressed even, by parenthood, Plunge is an explosive liberation. With it comes a twisted electro-pop that upon occasion, as on the celebratory “To the Moon and Back”, is even light and accessibly melodic.

That’s not to say this is all easy stuff. On “Falling” she seems to be exploring her sexual identity via a chugging Gary Numan-esque machine rhythm, while the techno pulsing “IDK About You”, with its occasional orgasmic yelp samples, may be about Tinder hook-ups and trust. The true centrepiece and manifesto, though, is “This Country”, which stridently identifies sexual repression with political will. Many will turn to the line “The perverts define my fuck history” but, perhaps, it’s true core lies in the couplet “Free abortions and clean water/Destroy nuclear, destroy boring”.

Plunge is less art-obtuse than much Dreijer has been involved in, closer in tone to Björk and, musically, Santigold’s underheard 2016 album 99¢. She remains her own creature, not releasing this through commercial imperative but as a necessary proclamation, yet it’s as pop as anything she’s done since The Knife’s second album 12 years ago.

Overleaf: Watch the video for "To the Moon and Back" by Fever Ray

Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders, More4 review - Swedish sleuth is a cold case

★★★ REBECKA MARTINSSON: ARCTIC MURDERS, MORE4 Crime drama from the far north looks good but doesn't quite grip

Crime drama from the far north looks good but doesn't quite grip

Sara Lund and Saga Norén have a lot to answer for. Their adventures in the murk of murder as they grapple with their own dysfunctional psychology entranced audiences who don’t speak a scrap of Danish or Swedish. The search has since gone on for other gripping instances of Nordic noir. How long can it be before we accept that The Killing and The Bridge both had ingredients that aren’t easily reassembled?

Before We Die, Channel 4 review - underwhelming and unengaging Scandi noir

★★ BEFORE WE DIE, C4 Unengaging Nordic noir could do better

Swedish crime drama offers dull production and a meandering plot

The new import is the latest procedural from Scandinavia, this time focusing on Stockholm’s biker gangs. The first episode aired Tuesday night, with the rest of the series available on All4 now.

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