491

Six troubled young boys are to go through a social experiment. They are supposedly doing this out of free will but in fact they have no choice, either the experiment or jail. The person in charge, Lars Lind is a young bourgeois fellow who is repeatedly let down and abused by Leif Nymark.

This movie was an absolute bombshell when it opened in 1964. There are some scenes in this movie that were extremely shocking to the average audience of that time, including tacit allusions to sodomy and a scene depicting (out of shot) a dog rape! Apart from that there was the naked portrait of a society in change where young people behave in a way unknown to their parents. This was unnerving, unsettling. But the Problem with the movie is that despite its good intentions it doesn't work. The character of Krister played by Lind is nothing but a caricature. He lacks every trace of credibility. His naivete is just out of this world. Also Vilgot Sjöman's (know as Vilgot Seaman in the States) attacks on the new social experiments is unfounded, superficial and simplistic. '491' is still a movie worth seeing, at least as a historical lesson.

Also worth mentioning is that the screenwriter, Lars Görling committed suicide after his own movie 'Tillsammans med Gunilla måndag kväll och tisdag' Sweden (1965), turned out only to be a mediocre product.