A BURNT CHILD

The first introduction on this side of a younger Swedish artist, this is a highly stylized study of a young man, sombre in its symbolism, unrelenting in its concentration on the uncomfortable situation, the unlovely detail. In a direct narrative, and in letters from himself to himself, this tells of Bengt, an emotional flagellant, as he broods over the death of his mother, is bitter against the father who had not loved her, is at first resentful of Gun, his father's mistress, and later attracted to her, and as he is irritated by his fiancee. This follows him through his affair with Gun, to which she responds with increasing listlessness, his marriage to his fiancee, his tentative attempt at suicide, and finally his resigned reconciliation with his wife... There's more than a suggestion of Kafka bore, and the market will be among the more interested, initiated avant-gardists.