Four Shades of Brown | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Tomas Alfredson |
Produced by | Caisa Westling |
Written by | Tomas Alfredson Robert Gustafsson Jonas Inde Andres Lokko Martin Luuk Johan Rheborg Henrik Schyffert |
Starring |
Robert Gustafsson Johan Rheborg Henrik Schyffert Jonas Inde Maria Kulle Ulf Brunnberg |
Cinematography | Leif Benjour |
Edited by | Louise Brattberg |
Production
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Distributed by | AB Svensk Filmindustri |
Release date
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Running time
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192 minutes |
Country | Sweden |
Language | Swedish |
Four Shades of Brown (Swedish: Fyra nyanser av brunt) is a 2004 Swedish film written by the comedy group Killinggänget and directed by their member Tomas Alfredson. The film stars Robert Gustafsson, Johan Rheborg, Henrik Schyffert, Jonas Inde, Maria Kulle and Ulf Brunnberg. The film consists four interweaved stories about life tragedies, with settlements related to fatherhood as the common theme. It was produced by Sveriges Television.
The film won four Guldbagge Awards including Best Director and Best Actor for Gustafsson. In 2005 it was aired on television as four mid-length television films, which had been reedited with additional footage.
In the film version, the stories are presented interweaved, although story-wise completely unconnected. In the television version, each story constitutes one episode and works as an independent television film, varying in length between 40 and 60 minutes.
Christer Landin, the father in a family living in a community in Scania, southern Sweden, tries to motivate his son who is falling behind in school by bringing him to his workplace as a pet cremator. Accidentally, the son turns on the crematory oven just in the wrong moment and the father is severely burned. Life still has to go on, and while the son is feeling guilty, the father goes through rehabilitation where he learns to speak again and befriends other local people also suffering from speech disabilities.
Richard Brunn, a man with a lifetime subscription to the magazine Wallpaper*, is together with his wife opening a top designed beachside hotel. They are visited by Richard's parents who work as stage magicians. The parents bring an easy-going Dane and a wooden statuette representing a former minister, which Richard finds to be extremely tasteless, and which triggers a mental breakdown.