The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and
Disappeared
(2013)
I gave up on Jonas Jonasson’s novel before the halfway mark.
While the premise held potential (an elderly Swedish fellow getting into
scrapes, interspersed with flashbacks illustrating his – relatively – Forrest Gump/Zelig charmed life in which he just happens to show up at important
historical events), the prose in translation (or maybe Jonasson’s prose is accurately
rotten) did not. The film version is pretty much an approximation of the book,
as far as I got to anyway. Its central conceit carries The 100- Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared along
in blackly comic fashion, and it is
affably eccentric albeit in a very studied way, but someone ought to have taken
the novel as a jumping off point rather than diligently translating it. There’s
precious little that’s fresh or original here.
Director Felix Herngren co-wrote the screenplay, so there
merely adequate results are his by design. At times the comic rhythms click, as
narrative punchlines are set up and pay off, but this is more thanks to Matti
Bye’s quirky score than any zest imbued by Herngren and his editor. The plot
wastes not time, but the director has little verve, as Allan Karlsson (Robert
Gustafsson) escapes his old people’s home by the titular route and hops on the first
bus out of town. It doesn’t take him very far because he doesn’t have very much
money. That he knows about, anyway; asked to watch a suitcase by a particularly
unpleasant skinhead who needs to relieve himself, Allan feels he has no choice
but to board the bus with it. We later discover it contains 50 million krona, which
of course means that the skinhead, and the gang he works for, want it back.
On his unplanned journey Allan meets various accomplices;
Julius (Iwar Wiklander), a roguish type who lives in a disused station
building; Benny (David Wiberg), who has begun numerous courses of study over the
previous 18 years and has nearly become qualified in a great many areas (including
zoologist, dietician, vet, pharmacologist and neuropsychologist) but finds it
impossible to decide on anything definite); and Gunilla, who owns a circus
elephant.
This is a tale of lucky coincidence, in which a web of
synchronicities lead our heroes to fortunate fates; even the negative turns of
events have silver linings, and the villains are hoisted by the own petards
(and basic stupidity). Allan walks through unscathed, perhaps because he was
scathed as a youth when a “racial
biologist” sterilised him. Allan contrasts with Forrest Gump in that he is
not wholly the innocent; there is a canniness in there too (although he seems a
tad more gumpish as a young man).
It’s been suggested that Allan is a metaphor for Sweden
itself; an apparently neutral (neutered) individual who nevertheless has a
capacity for supporting wrongfulness through profound passivity. Allan has a penchant for explosives, and is
blithely indifferent to those on the receiving end of a blast. His mother’s
advice that “Thinking will get you
nowhere” means that he does not pause to contemplate or regret; he merely
accepts. Allan shows up at, and gets
involved in, various conflicts (the Spanish Civil War, followed by making pals
with Franco, proving a key factor in the success of the Manhattan Project,
spilling his beans to Stalin, and then becoming a double agent for the
Americans), but he has allegiance to no one but himself.
In the context of the picture, this untouchable status is a
positive; Allan endures where others do not. Those with a passion, or a cause
(whatever their motives may be), fall by the wayside, while Allan (“You have changed the world for the better”
Truman tells him following the atom bomb test) carries on untainted. Depending
on the requirements of the sequence, Allan is unaware and guileless (his lack
of self-effacement with dignitaries) or dubiously adept (acting as spymaster).
He also shows no remorse for his actions, which means he is probably some sort
of benign sociopath.
The flashbacks are marginal, and too perfunctory in duration
and execution to hold much in the way of satirical intent or comic momentum
(Einstein’s idiot brother; really?) Whether one likes the film or not, Forrest Gump had a lot going on under
the lid (much of it contradictory, but at least that makes it interesting). 100 Year-Old-Man is never much more than
a tall tale told tolerably.
The
juxtaposition of our hapless quartet with a gang of pea-brained thugs yields fitfully
amusing consequences. Allan Ford breaks out his cockney gangster act (see Snatch) to reliable effect, and there’s
a mild-mannered police detective (Ralph Carlsson) whose most agitated moment
comes refusing to mention a radio show’s sponsor; “And I have a policeman here” segues a DJ who has just played
Message in a Bottle.
The 100- Year-Old Man
Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is consistently so-so. It stands as the most successful
Swedish film ever at $50m worldwide (don’t bother to Box Office Mojo it, though), but artistically it could have done
with some with flair, someone to indulge the exaggeration (Sweden’s answer to
Jean Pierre Jeunet?) and make it as heightened and off-the-wall as possible.
And to really embrace the absurdity of the tour through history. Gustafsson is
reasonable as the resolutely inscrutable lead, but he’s sunk under a ton of
shockingly bad make-up. If you’re basing your film on a special effect it
better be a good one. Gustafsson spends half the picture wandering around resembling
Billy Crystal’s Miracle Max from The
Princess Bride.
