John (Ulrik Munther) was a child when he committed his violent crime. And he is still a child when, two years later, having served his sentence in a juvenile offenders unit, he returns to his Swedish small town. He is ready to move on with his life, but the close-knit rural community is not about to forgive him; the quiet, decent townspeople start to look worryingly like a lynch mob. This knotty psychological study is an impressive debut from Poland-based Swedish director Von Horn, boosted in no small way by the striking, austere camerawork from Polish cinematographer Lukas Zal (Ida). The tension between John and his father (Mats Blomgren) manifests itself in savage battles over the correct use of cutlery; the scalding anger that triggered the crime begins to build in John again. Munther is particularly well cast: his sharp-boned beauty is both childlike and cruel, and his sulky passivity belies the pressure cooker of inarticulate rage within.
