The Freethinker

The fact that this 1994 film on Swedish playwright and novelist August Strindberg (1849-1912) hails from Oscar-winning iconoclastic director Peter Watkins more or less insures it won't be a conventional biography. Based on a script by Watkins, The Freethinker was made over a two-year-period as a project for a video production course involving 24 students at a high school outside Stockholm. What emerges is a meandering, ruminative (and often amateurish-looking) four-hours-plus examination of the author's life and works that intertwines dramatic recreations (mostly by non-professional actors), archival stills, and text inserts (to provide historical context), with occasional contemporary interludes showing scenes being filmed and students discussing the project. The focus is on Strindberg's childhood, first marriage, radical social views, and writings, but the arrangement is hardly chronological, and the material is covered slowly with some repetitiveness in order to encourage viewers to reflect on the information. Watkins is an interesting artist, and The Freethinker offers much to ponder, but the film's length, deliberate pacing, homemade style, and fractured structure require some patience. DVD extras include a 16-page booklet. Sure to appeal to admirers of the director's work and deserving of a place in academic documentary film collections, this is a strong optional purchase for others. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)