‘Everlasting Moments,’ a Swedish film by Jan Troell, luminously portrays both intense pain and intense joy in the lives of a working-class family in northern Sweden at the turn of the last century.

Maria Larsson is the central character; she is a woman swept up by powers out of her control. Once upon a time she married for love; now she has four children (three more appear in the course of the film), lives in a tenement in Malmo, and watches her husband progress from occasional drinker to outright abusive drunk.

The one thing she has for herself is a camera won in a lottery before she got married, she finds it at the moment when the film opens and the family is plunged into increased financial strife, as her husband and his fellow dock yards workers go on strike.

She decides the pawn the camera, but the kindly photographer in town convinces her that he will ‘buy’ her camera, but let her keep it on indefinite loan. He says he won’t take her camera until she tries to take a photo with it.

Set in the early 1900s, the film capitalizes on the idea that cameras at the time were finally cheap enough for a family to own one, yet photos were still rather a novelty. Even Sigge, Maria’s husband, is awed into complaisance when he sees the photo his wife took of their four children.

Maria, as it turns out, has an eye for photography, and becomes increasingly interested in the art and science of take pictures and developing them.

Unfortunately, the film shows how her artistic passions must take a back seat to taking care of her home and increasing family.

‘Everlasting Moments’ wrenchingly depicts Maria’s struggle for her family, her nascent feelings for the town photographer, as well as her fear and loathing of her husband’s drinking.

Shot in muted browns, beiges, and blacks, the film manages to channel a sense of the past without ever creating an easy nostalgia for it. Instead, it presents the audience with an honest look at the lives of the working class at the turn of the century.

At the same time, the film is not devoid of moments of beauty and sweetness. The moments in which Maria is taking photos, when her daughter Maja has her first kiss, or when the family goes for a country picnic are simple and expressive. Humor surfaces occasionally to take the edge off.

Overwhelmingly, however, the film is an anthem for all the women who have had to suffer their own dreams to die so their children could grow and flourish. It is a film that is difficult to watch, and even more difficult to forget.’