Balls (Orig. Swedish Farsan) (2010)
Language: Swedish
Genre: Comedy
Director: Josef Fares
From the director who gave the Swedish movie scene such beauties as Jalla! Jalla! (2000) and Kops(2003), this time Josef Fares is putting his own father in the leading role of this awesome comedy that at the same time skilfully shows the struggles men can be faced with. In Swedish, this movie is called Farsan, which would simply translate into The Dad. However, playing on one of the movie’s themes of “growing a pair”, in English we end up with the title Balls.
The movie stars three men in a bicycle shop; Jörgen, the boss, and his two employees Juan and Aziz (the dad). All of them face different struggles, and the solutions they come up with to fix these problems are both hilarious and heartfelt. Jörgen has troubles with his wife and feels that he has to become more macho in order to patch things up. Aziz is willing to help him out, but only if Jörgen in return sets him up with his mum. Juan has troubles accepting that his beloved dog Dino is old and would have to be put out of his misery. In addition to this, Aziz’s son Sammy and his wife Amanda face their own issues with how to tell Sammy’s father that they are going to adopt and not continue the family blood line. This turns into a nice charade featuring a fake belly.
Jan Fares in the role of Aziz is brilliant, playing the more than middle-aged immigrant father that since 10 years has lived without his late wife. Not directly focusing on culture differences, they are still being acknowledged in Aziz’s endeavours to find a new woman in his life and a grandmother to his grandchild to be. At the same time, he is trying his best to help his best friends out. Torkel Pettersson keeps playing the same character over and over again, and with the character Jörgen, it is yet another take on the soft and sensitive guy trying to become Mr. Macho and failing miserably. At times, this can be embarrassing, but it’s mostly just laugh out loud funny!
So, for your enjoyment, here is the trailer to this Swedish gem. Fear not, the trailer features subtitles! If you manage to get hold of this beauty, be ready to laugh hard as well as feel for these poor guys!
