Film Review: The Last Journey is a moving story
The Last Journey was Sweden’s entry into the International Feature category at the 97th Academy Awards.
It is a bitter-sweet documentary directed by Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson, Swedish TV personalities who have gained a reputation as Scandinavia’s answer to Ant & Dec.
When Lars Hammar retired from a lifetime as a schoolteacher, he left with a zest for the future and plans to spend his golden years adventuring with his wife, Tina. Instead, not only did he lose his zest for adventure, but he also lost his zest for life.
By age 80, Lars is all but unfirm. He sits all day and has lost his physical and mental strength. He has no underlying health conditions - his family had him medically assessed in the hopes of finding a cause, but it is depression that has left his body and mind tired and old.
His wife is full of get-up-and-go, and although she deeply cares for him, she is sad to see him in such a way and to miss out on all their plans. For his son, Filip, a well-known Swedish TV personality, watching his father dwindle is too much, so he has devised a plan.
Lars was a French teacher. France is his spiritual home, a place where he feels most alive, so Filip decides to bring him back to France to help him find his spark by recreating memories from his childhood trips.
He roots out old home videos and Lars’ dictaphone, which he used to record their adventures and his musings on his travels. Filip even goes so far as to find a Renault 4, a replica of the car they travelled in decades ago.
Filip isn’t prepared to do the job alone; he needs moral support, so he enlists his best friend and fellow broadcaster, Fredrik Wikingsson.
Lars isn’t so sure about the trip and thinks it might be a one-way journey, but they convince him to go. They don’t make it far before Lars has an incident and winds up in the hospital.
Filip and Fredrik realise the journey is too much for Lars. They take the car to France, where Lars will fly when he is released from the hospital. That is where the real journey begins.
We see family memories, gain insight into the type of man Lars is, the love his students have for him, and how much Filip wants to revive his father’s spark, but is he pushing him too far?
Filip is so desperate to see this old father’s spirit that he comes up with some madcap ways to achieve it, including hiring actors to enact a street-side argument. As Fredrik tries to be the voice of reason, can they find a midpoint and bring back Lars’ spark while getting Filip to accept that this father can never again be the youthful man he once knew?
While some of Filip’s decisions to literally recreate the past might appear a little questionable, each act is done with love and a profound sense of wanting his father to get better and return to his old ways.
It is beautiful to watch Lars’ humour and warmth emerge as he slowly comes back to life. There is also beauty in Filip’s acceptance that some things cannot remain the same, and try as we might, we cannot stop our parents from ageing.
Tender, funny, and deeply moving - if you don’t cry watching this, you don’t have a heart.
The Last Journey, in cinemas now, cert PG, ****
