ALL THINGS FAIR (Lust och fägring stor) turned out to be brilliant Swedish writer/director Bo Widerberg's elegy: after a long history of successful and emotionally captivating films, this film was his last. Watching again some twelve years later gives an entirely different level of appreciation for Widerberg's work. This is a little jewel of a film explores human sexuality at the time of puberty and the enormous impact on the way relationships are viewed, while at the same time it presents a keen insight to the world at war and the equally monstrous side effects in myriad ways.

Malmö, Sweden, 1943. A highschool class of boys is discovering the mysteries of body changes and all-consuming effects puberty has one young teenage men. Outside the classroom World War II threatens and inside the classroom puberty threatens. 15 year old Stig (Johan Widerberg) is a handsome, curious lad from a poor family who discovers his first female attraction in the form of his new 37 year old teacher Viola (Marika Lagercrantz),who, despite the impropriety of the situation added to the fact that she is married to a traveling salesman Kjell (Tomas von Brömssen) who spends his idle hours drinking and listening to classical music in the kitchen, returns the seductive dance and soon the two are in a physically involved affair. The beauty and fresh novelty of their feelings is captured in the most magical way with little dialog, many embarrassed glances, and significant risks that eventually include Kjell's discovery of their trysts. But as the two are discovered many changes occur: Stig's beloved soldier brother Sigge (Björn Kjellman) finally goes off to submarine warfare, Viola becomes less involved and senses the problem she has created, Stig falls under the spell of the tragic Kjell learning music and more from this pathetic man, and Stig finally must face the realities of more proper attraction to Lisbet (Karin Huldt) a girl his own age.

The actors are superb, the settings are atmospheric, and the era of the 1940s Sweden is perfectly represented. Part of the joy of the film is the musical score that varies from a Handel aria during moments love making, to Brahms' 'Ein Deutsches Requiem', to Mahler's 5th Symphony 'Adagietto', to Beethoven's 'Grosse Fugue.' Widerberg makes it all work in a misty yet sensuous manner. It is a film to own and one to watch often. In Swedish with English subtitles. Grady Harp

Bo Widerbergs last movie All Things fair, the male lead is the directors son. It is the love fall between Stig, 15 and his teacher, Viola 37. 1942 in the Swedish town Malmö. The 1955-movie with the same theme is based on a true story ... while in the shadow of the moralizing the love affair between a students with the principals wife develops: "Så tuktas kärleken" with the yesterday-famous (even A Hitchcock heard of) the blonde Karin Ekelund. Significant for Bo Widerbergs movie is the students search for knowledge. He is in the classroom, searching for a word in the schools dictionaries. Enters the teacher, asking what he does and telling him the meaning of the word he looks for: middling/mediocre. He reads: "Latin, mediocre, person of moderate ability, work of no particular value." It is the beginning of their relationship: working class boy vs middle class woman. Primary not a love affair between them but she as the door to knowledge the working class is forbidden to have. The teachers guiding part, as member of the upper class, owns the power of knowledge. The end of their love story is not that her husband discovers their affair (he accepts what is going on) but the friendship between her husband and her lover that triggers her jealousy and ends the affair between upper and working class: doomed from its start. Who was used and who ...? She uses her power against the powerless. She tells the schools principal that Stig has to repeat his year and the principal tells Stig after the decision: "we are all in agreement that you should repeat the third year next term."

The celebration in church of the schools years with the distribution of the certificates. The teacher in the place of the priest in front of the altar, calling the name/s of the pupil/s. Stig in his weekdays outfit enters, approaching her. We see only parts of his obscene gestures in front of his paralyzed teacher, Viola. He leaves the church, heading for the school. The doors are locked, entering as the working class boy he is by the cellar. He forces the classrooms door and takes the books. The books, the symbol for knowledge that always belonged to the ruling class. The last scene: above the schools entrance are carved in stone the sentence: Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom. In two bags he carries the books: the wisdom that now belongs even to him, the working class Their relation was a wisdom-encounter and a time limited human encounter. It ended when Stig befriended with her husband. Stig is played by the editors/directors son. Some parts are autobiographic.

How much I regret the passing of director Bo Widerberg who can create a film such as this one with its dramatic portrayal of human problems, human relationships and human emotions. It was not so much the dialogue but more the unspoken words that grabbed my attention and held me to the end. A long silence can be filled with meaning....a stolen look, a fleeting glance, a flicker of a smile, a movement of the eye....all these subtle messages electrify the air between Viola the teacher and Stig the student in the class room. We know at once that in some magical way their lives have been drawn together and as we are caught up in the drama we seem to know that eventually the ending will not be a happy one.

Under the guise of having special coaching lessons, Stig gains entrance into his married teacher's household after his evening cinema job. Shy at first he soon experiences the delights of a continuing relationship with Viola who is a very competent teacher in all respects. Perhaps we can pardon Viola for her "cradle snatching" when we find out that her husband has taken to drink and seems almost permanently drunk.

The love scenes are sensitively handled and the remarkable changes which develop in the characters create an imposing piece of cinema. Stig seems to take on a degree of security in a scene where he accuses the husband of the impossible situation. But who is really to blame? That is the intriguing part of the film.

There are some aspects that are not explained thus the viewer becomes involved. As for the stolen encyclopaedia, why would Stig carry them off. Is he just in a vindictive mood and does it just to annoy Viola or have those volumes become special to him because they belonged to Viola.