'My Sister, My Love'

My Sister, My Love is a not entirely sunny picture of life in medieval Sweden. Brothers seduce sisters; sisters marry out of spite. Powerful aristocrats intimidate less powerful ones, and all aristocrats intimidate the peasantry. Clergymen go wenching.

Writer-director Vilgot Sioman chose the Big Three issues-Class, God, Sex. And sticks with them. Sjoman cuts to poor people working in the snow if some rich people are riding along in a comfortable coach. A character sitting down alone immediately asks himself how vindictive God Almighty is, while a character at a party asks his unlucky neighbor. In between social conflicts and religious questioning, Sjoman schedules bed scenes. These appear in extraordinary variety. In fact, the movie is practically a documentary on sexual adventure. It presents innocent flirtation, premarital seduction, ordinary sordid whoring, passionate incest.

But Sjoman doesn't train the camera on politics or philosophical discussion or four poster beds steadily enough. He gets distracted. He'll mention retribution, then pass on; he'll hover around brother kissing sister on the mouth and move away. That's his formula: constant titillation without any satisfaction.

He cheats even in the love scenes that Playboy found so frank and the Boston police so objectionable. The scenes have superficial honesty because the bodies are naked. But that's it. They don't reveal how the brother's relationship with his whores differs from his relationship with his sister. And if there isn't any difference, if in moment of supposed intimacy people are still isolated, Sjoman doesn't make it clear.

The last straw is the cast. Bibi Anderson (the sister) and Per Oscarsson (the brother) tease you for 50-odd minutes. She's so beautiful, he's so wolfish, you expect that the wages of sin will be excitement. But Sjoman doesn't keep them on screen long enough to produce a stir. At the end he removes them completely in favor of a screaming baby. Leave early.