This is an excellent movie. You hold back tears and your humanity is tested as you watch these children in the most horrifying situations as the adults around them fail them at every single turn. The filmmaker seems to capture our souls as the vignettes build. Still you can't help but feel a sense of Oliver Twist with a modern day Lord of the Flies as you watch the movie. You see this socialist state more or less abandon these children well into the 1970's. In this story we focus on two boys but the fact is that many, many more were abused. I'm not spoiling anything for the viewer because you will not believe the horrors visited upon these children. But yet you're drawn to it, drawn because you wonder whether or not there's a silver lining. This is a fictional story. The bad guys are in fact an amalgam - there is no one-to-one between the story-line and the actual events. But imagine the worst acts that could take place in an adult prison - they're worse at this place. And imagine bad luck and then multiply it by 100 as these two little boys go from bad to worse. But the outrage really comes when you realize that even "bad" boys will band together once they recognize that they themselves aren't the problem but the adults and the system they face.
Children in this day and age were told they were bad. Told they were evil. Thousands of years of upbringing informed the modern day practices in this incredible montage. Yet even when our heroes leave the isolation of this children's community the world outside isn't much better.
I wish dear reader that I could tell you that something turned out well. It didn't. The horrors visited upon these children - and they would range in age now from about 40 to about 70 or 80 - is pretty horrendous. The level of proof demanded by Sweden's socialist government created a bar so high that definitely no child could meet it. Few adults could.
And today - still today - the government of Sweden has not acknowledged what happened in these children's homes - and I'm quite certain this was not unique. Similar to the Catholic church the government of Sweden will not admit there was any wrong doing and did not punish the perpetrators. And the perps by the way were every bit as bad as the priest of the Catholic church.
Watch this movie even if you feel your gut has been punched by the strongest bully possible and then act. Post. Get involved. Because society cannot abandon the least among us. And when we do - heaven help us the hell that will be visited on our societies.
Children in this day and age were told they were bad. Told they were evil. Thousands of years of upbringing informed the modern day practices in this incredible montage. Yet even when our heroes leave the isolation of this children's community the world outside isn't much better.
I wish dear reader that I could tell you that something turned out well. It didn't. The horrors visited upon these children - and they would range in age now from about 40 to about 70 or 80 - is pretty horrendous. The level of proof demanded by Sweden's socialist government created a bar so high that definitely no child could meet it. Few adults could.
And today - still today - the government of Sweden has not acknowledged what happened in these children's homes - and I'm quite certain this was not unique. Similar to the Catholic church the government of Sweden will not admit there was any wrong doing and did not punish the perpetrators. And the perps by the way were every bit as bad as the priest of the Catholic church.
Watch this movie even if you feel your gut has been punched by the strongest bully possible and then act. Post. Get involved. Because society cannot abandon the least among us. And when we do - heaven help us the hell that will be visited on our societies.