Inside the Diamond

The abandoned diamond factory in depopulated Robertsfors awakens to life in a poetic, wacky and kaleidoscopic drama where all of Sweden fits into a backwater.

The psychedelic ethnographer Viktor Johansson has found indie success with the dream-like portrayals of peripheral city districts in Under Gottsunda and Flogsta Heaven. In his latest film, the location is far from Uppsala’s high-rises, but in spirit it can be viewed as the last part of a trilogy about youth, growing-up and being lost. Coral grows outside of the government-run liquor store and the diamond factory’s soul watches over ghosts, refuges and sleeper who move through a depopulated northern Sweden in this magically told contemporary drama that provides philosophical answers to the fateful questions of Sweden’s sparsely populated areas.

• Olle Agebro