The most important thing that you need to know about director Swedish director Hannes Holm and his film A MAN CALLED OVE is that it was recently selected as Sweden’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film award at the 89th Academy Awards. Based on the wildly popular novel by Fredrik Backman (amd adapted by Holm), A MAN CALLED OVE is about a curmudgeonly old man living an isolated life of playing enforcer of every bylaw in his block’s bylaws about parking, waste disposal, noise, you name it. He’s effectively given up on live since he beloved wife passed away a few years before we meet him.
But when a young couple moves in across the street, Ove (played by the great Rolf Lassgard) strikes up an unlikely friendship with the Iranian wife (Bahar Pars) and the couple’s young children, all of whom draw Ove out of shell and give us a glimpse (via flashbacks) into his past, when he was far more agreeable and capable of loving figures in his life like his father and wife.
A director of both television series and films, Holm has helmed mostly broad comedies such as ADAM & EVA, SHIT HAPPENS, THE REUNION, WONDERFUL AND LOVED BY ALL, and BEHIND BLUE SKIES before tackled something slightly more serious like OVE. Holm was in Chicago recently, where we had a chance to sit down at chat at length about the film, landing the job, and why his primary concern was not being the guy who screwed up the film version of a much-loved book. Please enjoy my chat with Hannes Holm…
Capone: First of all, congratulations on OVE being an official Oscar submission.
Hannes Holm: Thank you, Steve. Have you read the rules?
Capone: To become submitted? No.
HH: [laughs] Yeah, the rules. Thank you very much. It’s a big, gigantic bonus, because for the jurors of the Swedish Film Institute, it was a step aside. But coming here, I was in LA two days ago, and I was having dinner with a writer called Pete Hammond. And when they discussed the Oscars at the table, it was like sitting in a village listening to people talking about their little film competition. [laughs]
Capone: In Los Angeles, it might feel that way.
HH: Exactly. And yes, the thing they said was, like in Sweden, it’s the struggle between the more obscure films and the more popular films. In the ’80s, I started with satire and sketches on Swedish TV. We started to make movies, and got labelled “this comedian guy,” and then when I was getting older, I wanted to do some other things, and when I got the offer to make A MAN CALLED OVE, I turned it down because I thought that it was a comedy and the title A MAN CALLED OVE sounds a bit comedic. So I had this meeting with the producer and I said thanks, but no thanks, but I kept the copy of the book, because books are so expensive. Then I read the book in the evening, and when the morning sun came, I was crying and I called her and said yes.
Capone: What do you remember responding to when you first read the book?
HH: When she told me the story of the grumpy old man who meets a new neighbor, and she’s from Persia, it seemed so, we say in Sweden “politically correct.” Have you heard that before?
Capone: They call it that here too.
HH: [laughs] So I wasn’t a bit interested, and it also was a best seller. I’m 53 years old, of normal intelligence, so I don’t want to be that guy who ruined it for the book lovers. [laughs]
Capone: You’d never hear the end of it.
HH: But during that night [of reading the book], the thing that moved me were the flashbacks and his earlier life. The grumpy old man is an archetype. But in this story, we have the flashbacks, and I got the opportunity as a director to explain why he’s such an idiot [laughs]. Also when I was young, I often took my parents [photo] albums and looked at black-and-white pictures, and there they were, before they had us, four stupid children, and I could see they were out camping and doing things. I didn’t hear nothing because it was photos. And I could also see their neighbors. They were sitting by their neighbors and smiling, and I knew that daddy didn’t like that guy, but they’re sitting and smiling. Then I read the book and I connected that in the ’60s and ’70s people moved into those kind of semi-attached houses and were like, “Hello. How are you? You’re invited to our house. Oh, thank you.” But maybe they really don’t like them. So that was the thing when I read the book, the thing that caught me.
Capone: The flashbacks are some of my favorite scenes because you’re adding a new layer to him every time we see one. I would have to watch it again to make sure, but it felt like the more modern scenes feel very dreary and cold, much like him, but the flashbacks feel warm and colorful. Did you shoot them differently?
HH: I’m like your standard type of guy. I buy my furniture mostly at Ikea. My wife is an influence too. I think the story dictates the production design work. My DP came to me and said, “Hannes, when I read your script, in the beginning we’re presenting Ove we have these very [stagnant] framing, then when he meets Parvaneh, maybe we can start to move the camera more and more, getting closer.” He said it to me. “The flashbacks, aren’t they going to warm?” In a way, it was quite logical to do it that way. The film has been a great success, but if you talk about things that are maybe today I want to do better, one thing is that: it’s Ove’s flashbacks. It may not be the reality of what happened or how it really was and looked.
Capone: He’s an unreliable narrator.
HH: Exactly, exactly.
Capone: That’s even sweeter then that he still holds memories like that.
HH: Exactly.
Capone: Also it might just feel warmer because his wife just radiated that. It’s coming from her. She’s beautiful, she’s nice, everything around her feels warmer, even if you didn’t shoot it any differently.
HH: It’s a dream meeting. She’s the girl that every man wants to meet. It takes care of everything.
Capone: I don’t think he ever really feels like he’s worthy of her, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to let her go.
HH: You’re right on it there, because one of the things I loved working with him is how love can be so destructive. He’s thinking about committing suicide. He’s not even religious. He wants to meet her again, so that side I like, that love can be so stupid.
Capone: I don’t think we’re giving anything away by saying the chapters in this film are his different suicide attempts. That’s a tough thing to make funny, but you do to a degree. Talk about shooting that in a way that doesn’t seem too morbid or grim that’s actually humorous because he keeps getting foiled each time.
HH: It’s an interesting question, because I think it was so stupid. We shot it on location, so the room where he tries to hang himself, it’s a real room. Standing by the camera when Rolf was supposed to hang himself, that was the first moment where I, as a former comedian was like, “Shit, maybe this is going to be too funny or too dramatic. We have to have a balance here.” The story is the balance between comedy and tragedy. When Rolf was asking me how to pay it, I think I said, “Like when you drive a car and it’s icy.”
Capone: Very slow and deliberate.
HH: Very slow, exactly.
Capone: Did he give you different versions of it that you could chose from and see what worked?
HH: Not Rolf, but you can do it in music. The most magical thing is the audience decides. I’ve been to Moscow with this film, I’ve been to the Netherlands and Germany—it’s the audience who decides how funny it’s going to be. I’ve been in screenings where people are laughing. You must follow me. In three weeks time, I’m going to Tokyo, the Promised Land of suicides [laughs].
Capone: That’s a whole different definition of suicide.
HH: Yeah, it is. There’s a film called THE TREE?
Capone: I’ve actually seen two films this year set in that forest [called Aokigahara]. One was a horror film called THE FOREST, which was not very good, and the other is the new Gus Van Sant film with Matthew McConaughey called SEA OF TREES.
HH: SEA OF TREES, exactly! There’s an island, one of Sweden’s biggest islands, they have the most suicides in Sweden. And Japan is also an island.
Capone: I wanted to ask you about Rolf, because I’ve seen him in other things, more serious things for the most part.
HH: So you see Scandinavian films?
Capone: Oh yeah, absolutely. I try not to miss them when they make it to Chicago. I’m especially fond of Danish cinema.
HH: I live very close to Denmark. I live on the opposite side of Copenhagen. Rolf has been in one Danish film, AFTER THE WEDDING.
Capone: I definitely saw that one. That’s Susanne Bier’s film. Why was he the right guy to play Ove?
HH: Because the first day I started to write the script, it wasn’t my first adaptation, but I usually write my own stories. But this was another person’s story, and I think I write my own stories because I don’t want to ruin some ofter person’s work.
Capone: Was that one of the reasons you were hesitant to take it on?
HH: Exactly. But when I started to write the script—sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t—I started to think about Rolf on the first day. It doesn't mean he’s going to be the actor in your film, but he was in my mind that two months. But the production company who didn’t really believe in the film, because they thought A MAN CALLED OVE was an ordinary Swedish comedy, and we made the film for $350,000. Only in Sweden the box office gross is $20 million.
Capone: Somebody said it’s the third-biggest grossing film in Swedish history?
HH: In forever. But they didn’t even want to have the cat in the film.
Capone: That cat is essential.
HH: Stupid people! But I called the production company and said, “I think I want Rolf Lassgard,” and they said, “But he’s not funny,” because they said it was a comedy. I think I’m going to contact him. I called him, and all Rolf said to me—we haven’t worked together before—“But Hannes, I’m not funny.” But this is not such a funny film. Then we met. We made Ove a bit older. I wanted it so you could have history in his face.
Capone: He looks older than he really is, and he’s only supposed to be 59 or something. He looks world weary.
HH: Yeah, yeah. That was a problem for me when I met the author, because I told the author the things that this grumpy old man does, he seems to be like 70 for me, but you can be grumpy if you’re 20. Of course you can be grumpy, but I had this problem with the flashbacks. I don’t know how old you are, but when they’re 59 they look like 40. Then you’re going to have flashbacks from just a week ago. So I needed to stretch.
I can’t tell you all the things I’ve made wrong in this film [laughs]. I kept the line, which today sitting with you I can tell you I should have taken out, where he gets sacked, they’re saying “You’re 59-years-old.” So there you have it. That’s a very bad line to have in this film, because then people hear figures, and you remember it. When I was an actor, when I was 17, I was very normal person then, but I got this role in a Swedish film. My costume guy told me you never have shirts with numbers on them, because if you can see them, people never forget numbers.
Capone: The character is very anti-authority—he calls them white shirts. At the same time, he’s not very tolerant of people that live anti-establishment lifestyle, like hippies. It doesn’t take long for you to realize that he just dislikes people.
HH: Exactly. It’s a good point. It’s a Swedish mix, because in Sweden during the ’60s and ’70s and from the ’50s, there’s this belief that the government should take care of everything, and in a way for me, Ove is like an Italian guy taking care of everything by himself, or an American guy. In Sweden, I think the critics are wrong when they say he’s a Swedish social democrat. He’s not, because social democrats believe the government should take care of everything. So we have this situation where he dislikes the white shirts, and in a way, Swedes are a mix between believing the government must take care of this and this, and it’s also a generation thing, because as Ove is saying, nobody knows how to fix a tire. What’s this film, I think it came 10 years ago, about a man traveling into the future and he’s so bright and smart, because in the future everybody’s so stupid. Have you seen that film?
Capone: IDIOCRACY?
HH: Ah, yes! I think it’s such a fun idea. It reminds me of that.
Capone: We haven't even talked about Parvaneh. Yeah. Where did you find Bahar Pars? I know she hasn’t done very much, but she’s beautiful, funny and energetic. She is the bit of color in his modern life.
HH: She won’t take no for an answer. It was a problem with the casting of Parvaneh, because Sweden is a small country.
Capone: But she really is Iranian, right?
HH: Yeah, and the author’s wife is also Iranian. So I didn’t have so many actors to watch, but the problem was more like when actors came, and they had obviously read the book, done their job, and every Parvaneh that comes in said, “It’s my story. I’m Parvaneh. I read the book, and it’s my story.”
Capone: Why is that bad?
HH: It was bad because they become so sad. Bahar, I think she said that too, but it was a big difference between Bahar and the other girls—every immigrant that came was playing so well as victims, because they are victims in the Swedish society, except for Bahar. She just came in doing her own thing. When we work with the cats in the scene where he dies, I think I spent one-and-a-half hours in the room just to get the cat on Ove’s stomach. “Okay. Camera, and Bahar must come out.” Bahar comes into the room, sees the cat on the stomach of the dead Ove, goes and, “What’s the cat doing here?” [He mimics her picked the cat off Ove’s stomach] Because she’s Iranian, animals are not that highly rated, so “Shit, what do I do with this?”
Capone: In terms of the two of them together though, what do they bring out in each other?
HH: Ask my DP about that [he uses his hands to show that Bahar is very short and Rolf is very tall].
Capone: He’s much more physically imposing, but she dominates him every time they’re together.
HH: Exactly. Except when he pushes her. I was so afraid. “No, take it easy with her.” These semi-attached houses, they were built in the ’60s and ’70s, and were flooded by people since Sweden subsidized them. So many people moved into these houses, and nowadays in Sweden there are second-generation immigrants moving into these houses. Things start to change, because when she’s coming with the food as you mentioned, knocking on the door to have a house warming with the food, you never do that in Sweden nowadays. But they did in the ’60s and ’70s. So when immigrants are moving into these houses, people start to interact, and I think Bahar really doesn’t see that grumpiness is a thing. She just sees through the grumpiness, but I think, as a Swede, most people see this grumpiness and just don’t go there.
Capone: She also doesn’t seem to have any hesitation about leaving her kids with him either.
HH: You’ve got a point there. [laughs]
Capone: She has no fear when it comes to him. She just knows inherently that he would take care of them.
HH: Exactly. That scene, when he reads the saga for the children, that was the scene that Rolf was most afraid of of all scenes in the film.
Capone: That he was afraid of? Really?
HH: Yeah. “Hannes, can we talk about that scene?” “Come on, Rolf, you have had three children of your own. Obviously you’ve read to them.” I didn’t really get why he was so nervous about this scene, then I realized what it was, and I haven’t talked to him about it. He was nervous because it was one of the scenes in the script that he could feel “This is meant to be a bit funny,” and being a dramatic actor he was a bit afraid of being funny, so therefore he was so nervous because “I’m not that funny guy.”
Capone: It doesn’t come across that funny. I think it came out really sweet. That actually one of the first major leaps in him to melting a little when he’s feeling something for his family. Who were some of your filmmaking heroes when you were starting out?
HH: The thing was it’s interesting because I worked so much. When you write and direct, it’s a lot of work to get done. When I go to film festivals, I often haven’t the time to see other films. But when I was 20, it came this French new wave. It was a guy called [Jean-Jacques] Beineix. He made DIVA and BETTY BLUE. I think my best friend went to DIVA like seven times with seven different girls.
Capone: So you’re talking about the ’80s then. Then after when I started to work in TV, I started to love obviously Woody Allen. But if you want to have a special interest, when I recognized certain Italian films, because you can never ever tell what’s going to happen, and they mixed tragedy and comedy in such a beautiful way. I think that’s the worst thing with Ingmar Bergman in Sweden is he has a total lack of humor. I think the best stories are when you can find the right balance. I was doing this comedy thing in the ’80s and ’90s and so on, but when I turned into writing more drama, my wife Marlin is reading scripts, and she said “Too funny.”
Capone: On this one?
HH: Yeah. Because when you write, it’s almost like a drug. If you can see that guy can say a funny line, you write a funny line, but it doesn’t mean that the scene needs it. So sometimes it’s better just to drop it. And Rolf has taught me many things in that regard too.
Capone: Did he also recommend certain times when maybe it was becoming too funny?
HH: Yeah, because I was the guy who was afraid of the scenes like when he’s smelling the clothes, because for me it’s “What is he doing, and how am I going to direct a scene when a guy is just smelling?” I know the scene was important, but for me it’s like “Where’s the idea of the scene?” Probably if you’re coming out of the Ingmar Bergman corner and do comedy, I think you have the same concerns. You said you liked Danish films?
Capone: I love them. I caught on to them through the Dogme 95 movement. I discovered actors and directors through that that I still follow to this day.
HH: In Sweden, we always talk about Danish films and how good they are. And in Scandinavia, Danes are seen like the Lebanese people because they are so good in trade.
Capone: You do not just stick with one tone. It’s actually more of an emotional roller coaster.
HH: But the thing with the tone is so important, because I totally agree that the Danes stick with the tone, and that’s important. I don’t think Swedes have the courage. I’ve been talking about this for hours with my friends, and living opposite of Copenhagen, I’m out with Charlie, our dog, and I see the bridge over to Copenhagen, to Denmark, and for me, it’s like what is happening on that bridge?
Capone: There’s a mist that makes you weirder.
HH: Exactly, it’s a mist. I’ve come so far now in my discussions about Danish film. One answer is that Denmark was in the war. Sweden wasn’t in the war, so they are closer to this “anything can happen” thing, so they are closer to conflict and drama. That’s one solution. But then there’s another thing about the Swedish: if a Swedish director is successful, they get offers from your fantastic country they move. They think “This is my ticket.” But the Danish directors or actors, they go, they shoot the film, and they go back to Copenhagen. I’m getting close. I want to solve it [laughs].
