And it all started off so happily…
When elderly Norwegian sisters Kari and May decided to buy a house together in the small Swedish town of Gullspång, they realised to their astonishment that the seller bore the most uncanny resemblance to their older sister Lita, who had tragically committed suicide some 30 years before. Further digging through official records revealed that Lita was, indeed, a twin who was separated from her sibling in the early 1940s, probably so both could be protected from experiments that the invading Nazis were conducting on twins.
The women’s newfound sibling Olaug was equally amazed to find out about her strange heritage, and embraced her new siblings.
So Kari and May contacted director Maria Fredriksson, whom they knew of as an “auntie” director (a terms the director herself uses, given how she has made many films about older women) to make a happy record of this spectacular coincidence.
Fredriksson recalls her initial conversation with her incredulous producer Ina Holmqvist, “She said, ‘how are you going to tell this story. Because we are documentary filmmakers, not fiction. And the miracle of the story has already happened.’”
“At least, that’s what we thought at that point. Foolishly,” Fredriksson stresses. “Little did we know…”
Because, as we see in the film, things begin to get ugly in the sleep town of Gullspång, and what follows is a multi-layered and hyper-complex story that turns the world of all its protagonists upside-down, exploring all the time, and in the most forensic detail, aspects of identity, trust, regret and the need to believe. What’s more, the film re-engages the age-old nature/nurture debate as it pits faith against secularism, conservatism against liberalism, naivety against sophistication. Without giving anything away (no spoilers!), a deep rift develops between two increasingly entrenched camps, which is rendered more severe after Olaug decides to investigate the suspicious death of her supposed twin.
The reversals and twists in the film are myriad (still no spoilers!). “Every time we went there with a goal to get something as you do as a filmmaker, you have a plan in your head about what’s gonna happen, then every time something else happened. So it was jaw-dropping for us. And I didn’t know at certain points who to trust and who not to trust. There have been some sleepless nights with this film, I can tell you,” says Fredriksson, who at one point is forced to intervene off-camera to ask her protagonists just what the hell is going on.
But despite the psychological maelstrom experienced by all, Fredriksson was determined to maintain a gentle touch, even within a story that was becoming increasingly dark and ominous. “When I make all my films. I want to tell about serious subjects but in a light tone. Or add some humour. That is super important to me because I think sometimes when you make documentaries with these very important subjects you tend to forget that the audience might want to be entertained also. It’s not forbidden to entertain when you talk about serious subjects.”
Fredriksson comments how at one point she felt a “responsibility” to find answers to all the mysteries that the story was throwing up, and that the production room wall began to resemble a crime scene wall from a police drama. “I actually turned into this investigator,” she says.
But there came a point when the filming had to come to an end.
“There were many reasons, of course. But at that point, the family were happy with not getting the black and white truth. They just wanted to stop. And also they got some signs that they should stop,” the director notes. Such as when a light fitting mysteriously crashes to the floor, plunging the room into darkness, which the family assumes to be divine intervention.
“I realized that when they didn’t want to pursue this, I couldn’t do it [alone] because that would’ve been unethical if I should be this investigator and find things and give them answers they don’t want. So at that point I had to stop, but of course it doesn’t stop in my head. I’m still curious. I want the answers,” she says.
After last weekend’s world premiere at Tribeca where Fredriksson saw the film together with a paying audience for the first time, she was able to reflect generously on protagonists within a story where the notion of truth is somewhat fluid, and totally subjective. “They just have different ways to see the truth. They might change during the film in their beliefs, but at the point when they’re saying something, they are a hundred percent believing that it’s true.”
“Nobody’s a liar in this film,” the director underlines. “They just have very different versions of the truth.”
The Gullspång Miracle is sold by MetFilm Sales.
