Evil (2003)

Set in a Swedish boarding school, Erik was expelled from his last school for fighting, but now history is now repeating. Erik believes in personal freedom, not liking being told how to live, so when the sixth form student council sets to bring Erik into line, being a smart ass and constantly disobeying; bloody fights ensue.

Erik's rebellion though stems from his family. His father is dead and his mother is seeking new love. Her new boyfriend is an oppressive and abusive aristocrat, dealing out whippings to Erik over minor matters.

The Student council deal out their usual hazing to the freshmen, but Erik is the first one to ever stand up for himself and break tradition. In this school the law is not dealt by the teachers, its the student council who hand out punishments, the teachers scream ignorance to this, never taking care nor notice. The punishments range from the simple to the very dangerous.

Evil is a great look on friendship, freedom, punishment and a view on totalitarianism. Its 'The Experiment' set within 'Dead Poets Society' with abit of 'sleepers' for good measure. You start to wonder why people are given powers that can deal out such brutal punishments that can be such life threatening.

At times this film can be very dark, yet it does have trouble holding onto this. During the scenes of brutality, its quite confronting, but most of the time its very lite and does have a hard time keeping your attention; if it had let the violence poke it head out more often it would have been a lot more disturbing and a lot more powerful. The fights here are quite bloody and brutal, director Mikael Håfström wasn't afraid to throw some blood around the walls.

It kinda mind blowing that this was based on actual events.

Fmovies: Ondskan is a Swedish movie about a young man who despite being a smart student often gets in trouble with his bad conduct and reputation. So much so that he is soon expelled from school and is given little chance to have a good future. With the help of his mother he is given a last chance at graduating at an exclusive all male school. There he finds contrasting fortunes as he struggles against the cruel upperclassmen and finds friendship and love as he struggles to finish school. This movie was nominated for a Oscar for best Foreign Language film.

I thought the actors did a great job in portraying their characters. Andreas Wilson did a great job as Erik as he went from a furious student being bullied to a softer Erik when it came to scenes with Marja. I thought he did a great job in the transformation fro his many personalities. Even more surprising is the fact that this film is actually his first movie. Also a menacing Gustaf Skarsgard did a great job in playing the big bully in the film.

You could also in this film some very basic themes such as love, friendship and the constant battle of good versus evil. They were well crafted into the film and some of the scenes I thought were good enough to display these themes.

Erik Ponti(Andreas Wilson) is a young trouble maker who is constantly abused by his stepfather and often ignored by his mother. After a fight in his school, Eric gets enrolled in a boarding school by his mother. At the new school, Erik only makes one good friend Pierre(Henrik Lundström) but their lives slowly start falling apart when the older boys from the school make a pact to make Erik's life a living hell. This was a very gripping and disturbing movie. I saw this at the Vancouver Film Festival and enjoyed it quite a lot. Andreas Wilson is a gorgeous and talented young man and I hope he becomes big someday. I would give Ondskan or also known as "Evil" 8/10.

Evil fmovies. I have lately been trawling through Swedish movies, in an effort to watch as many as I can. I have not yet come across one that I didn't at least appreciate. The Scandinavians are remarkable story-tellers, and can teach the rest of the world a thing or two about good story-telling in film. What surprises me the most is why it is the rest of the world does not know about and applaud this film. As an examination of bullying and abuse it is extraordinary.

"Ondskan" is the story of one teenage boy's experiences of bullying - both as a perpetrator and also from the receiving end - firstly at the hands of his bitter & twisted stepfather, then in the school-yard at his high school, and lastly at an exclusive boarding school to which he is sent by his mother. It is a highly charged movie, and will be too much for some more sensitive viewers, but tells a very important story of how it is bullying is perpetrated, justified, institutionalised, and then passed on so that the behaviour continues.

There is little to place this story in an historical context other than the music and the rather odd dress of the late 1950's. The culture of the school to which Erik Ponti is sent is one in which the members of the Council - the Boss Boys - ritually bully the younger boys, and the school staff turn a blind eye. To fight back by striking a Council member is to invite expulsion, and Erik cannot risk this. Andreas Wilson has a strong presence, and is believable as Erik, and Henrik Lundstrom, who plays the sensitive Pierre, is worthy of mention also. I came across this movie because I was searching for movies featuring Gustaf Skarsgard. In "Ondskan" Skarsgard plays the student we all want to hate - the top bully - and he does it well. Later in the movie we are given a brief insight into what drives him, and the degree of pain he experiences on a daily basis. Great writing!!

The only real gripe I had while watching this film was the swimming style of Erik's character. He was meant to be a top swimmer, and yet while doing freestyle his arms barely managed to get out of the water. With a swimming stroke like that he'd never make it to be top swimmer at any school. Picky, I know, but it bothered me.

If I could give this film 12 stars I would.

This is a great film. Truly outstanding. The characters are real and the story, however farfetched, rings true to life. Particularly enjoyable is the internal fight that transforms Erik from an angry youth to a man. And who could forget Andears' handsome good looks?!? Watch out Hollywood! Better prepare for the Swedish invasion! If you have the opportunity to see this film, do. It's well worth your time and money.

Imagine the schoolboy sadism of Der Junge Törless (1966), the anarchism of If... (1968), with just a dash of the old school bullying of Tom Brown's School Days, and you get something of the flavour of Evil, which sets its student angst in 1950s' Scandinavia. Ironically for a film that will end up on a relatively pacifist message, it starts with a punch up as the rowdy hero Erik (Andreas Wilson), thrashed by his unpleasant step father at home, duly takes it out on another student at his current school - only to be summarily expelled on the basis of his continuing bad behaviour. Dubbed 'evil' by the headmaster at his disciplinary hearing Erik appears, at least at first sight, to be irredeemably bad. Surly and uncommunicative, a trait he only gradually overcomes, he's a disruptive influence. One measure of the film's success is how it will show a growing moral dimension to this truculent and uncooperative personality, the once-bad boy quickly maturing before our eyes. It will also show how being a 'disruptive' influence can ultimately be a positive, just as much as a negative, force in a closed society. But meanwhile Erik's long suffering mother packs him off at short notice to Stjansberg, an exclusive boarding school where, we are told, are moulded generations of Swedish 'supermen'.

Adapted from a bestselling novel based on painful reminiscence, Evil is praised in interview on the disc by the author for its 'journalistic accuracy' in recreating events. It's a fact that makes the environment in which a more subdued Erik finds himself all the more chilling and depressing. For Stjansberg is a school where the teachers believe in leaving students to their own devices outside of classes, a place where enthused with an ethos of alleged 'team spirit' the system of discipline and punishment is arbitrary, prejudiced against the weak or different, and where elements of fascism still lurk within the teaching profession. Despite its regimentation and strict codes, Erik soon discovers that "there's no honour in (the) school - only ways of making it hell," while eventually realising that "what separates men from animals is not only intelligence, it's morality." Set on a painfully steep learning curve, he makes friends with the best student in the school (his roommate), and while remembering his promise to his mother, struggles to stay out of trouble. Erik's painful introspection at this point recalls that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause (1955) another film in which a troubled male youngster forms an alliance with a weaker soul (Sal Mineo's 'Plato') while in moral agony over conflicting impulses.

Erik may suddenly be concerned to stay out of conflict, but his refusal to compromise a newfound dignity and moral superiority quickly brings him up against Silverstein, the Flashman figure of the piece who, as a the most visible representation of the fascist strain that permeates the school has "to be fought, now and forever." What infuriates the bullies at the school no end is Erik's unexpected - and, in the light of what we have seen of him previously, uncharacteristic - refusal to fight. Instead he maintains a quiet mocking stoicism, bearing glumly, at least to a point, the institutionalised humiliation heaped upon him. Like Gandhi, a name associated with a philosophy of peaceful protest and civil disobedience (and who is specifically invoked at one point in the film) Erik's mature response to provocation i