EXCLUSIVE: When one thinks of Swedish cinema, the head fills with images of Ingmar Bergman movies, the gritty punk noir The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, oh, and let’s not forget the takedown of the Bourgeois in The Triangle of Sadness. But along comes this year’s heartwarming and hysterical documentary, The Last Journey, from the country’s unconventional TV journos Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson, in which the former is determined to revive his 80-year old, but ailing father’s joie de vivre.
Hammar sets out to take Lars Hammar back to the French coastal town, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, where the family made myriad memories when dad wasn’t teaching French to high school students. This entails the young Hammar’s securement of an orange Renault, which was their summer vehicle. Take a look at the clip above in which Filip literally puts his dad behind the wheel. Filip will do whatever it takes to make his father happy: His dad was always amused by the feistiness of the French, especially in traffic. What does Filip do to make dad smile? He stages a fake fight between two French drivers. Wikingsson is along for the ride to help make Lars’ dreams come true.
Spoiler alert: Get a box of Kleenexes ready as The Last Journey has an ending you don’t see coming. The movie leaves viewers with a renewed sense of life. The duo filmmakers continually hear stories from moviegoers that they too are now taking their elderly parents on trips now to make good on any vacancies in their lives.
The Last Journey at 400K admissions is the highest grossing documentary ever in Sweden. The pic made more money than Legendary/Warner Bros’ Dune: Part Two ($2M) in the country.