"Bo Widerberg is – like, to a certain extent, Jan Troell – one of the great modern filmmakers who has been least recognized. In a way, he was a Swedish Pialat – another great filmmaker whose international recognition remains problematic – his cinema intensely sensitive, inscribing itself in an osmosis with nature observed with an eye like that of the impressionists. The dry lyricism in this work is also that of revolutionary hopes at a labor movement’s inception, a lyricism also found in another of his films, Joe Hill."

"Another coming-of-age story, this one is about a young boy sent to live with relatives in the countryside when his mother is unable to take care of him anymore after falling ill with TB. The boy, Ingemar, barks like a dog to avoid difficult situations. He is too young to face his predicament and very sweetly navigates his way through an eccentric cast of characters in a small Swedish town. A really loving and heartwarming tale with an amazing performance by a young Anton Glanzelius."

"My favorite of Ingmar Bergman’s many great films. Funny, romantic, and profound, it is the most perfect period costume dramedy. “Love is the perpetual juggling of three balls: heart, mind, and body,” says Eva Dahlbeck as the aptly named actress Desirée Armfeldt. Tell me about it! Gunnar Björnstrand is great as the unbearable lawyer Egerman, playing against the delightful trio of Swedish actresses Harriet Andersson (beyond cute), the aforementioned Dahlberg, and Ulla Jacobsson. A good entry into the world of Bergman for anyone who is expecting dark meditations on mortality."

"I think everyone will know our admiration as a band for this record. Unfortunately I don’t think it sold that great for them, although everyone expected it to do well, that kind of Swedish coolness. I think they described it as their “beardy album”. The track ‘Communication’, whenever it comes on all three of us well up with tears. ‘For What It’s Worth’ is one of the greatest records ever made, it’s just fucking outrageously perfect. I’m a huge fan of Nina’s lyrics, I think she’s hugely underrated. Obviously her voice is amazing. She ended up doing a duet with us, which was one of our greatest moments I think."

"I’ve seen this movie more times than I can count. I think it’s the best movie about being a kid ever made. It’s a fairy tale and a nightmare and a totally believable portrayal of a Swedish family in Uppsala at the turn of the twentieth century, all at the same time. It has always reminded me of one of my favorite novels, Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. It’s also a movie about the weird magic of theater . . . Both the opening sequence and the reading from Strindberg at the end kill me. And the way Bergman shoots inanimate objects . . . The statues and the toy angels and the clocks and the puppets and the lamps . . . They’re all watching Alexander, the whole movie."

"I guess I’ll have to start with Songs from the Second Floor, which is a film by Roy Andersson, who is a brilliant Swedish filmmaker who basically… He made a feature in the ’70s called A Swedish Love Story that is a really wonderful, strange, funny, acerbic commentary on Sweden that became this huge hit. I think it was the biggest hit ever in Sweden. And then he delved into making commercials for a long time, and he developed this new style over the course of something like 300, 400, 500 commercials. Then, in the early 2000s, he came out with this film that took him several years to make called Songs from the Second Floor, which is like a parody of obsessive perfectionism. He’s very similar Jacques Tati in that he works primarily with stationary wide shots, and he’s always building sets. All of the sets in his films are built from scratch, and the reason his films take so long to make is because each each vignette is one shot, and the set for that shot tends to take a month to build. There’s just like these gorgeous paintings, and there’s this really singular, dark, dry, sad wit driving everything he does. Since Songs from the Second Floor he’s come out with two other films that play like spiritual sequels, You the Living and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, which I think you can see on Netflix. But Songs from the Second Floor remains the most perfect of the films, in my opinion."

"And Ninotchka. You know Ninotchka? I recommend it. It’s kind of a mess, too. It was before, you know, we got slick editing tools, so it kind of chops along. You can tell that they shot one thing one day, and then when her hair was a little longer, they shot it again. [laughs] It’s Ernst Lubitsch, wonderful director, not too many comedies, and I think that’s kind of the reason for the not-so-fluid flow of this film. But it’s Greta Garbo being funny – I’m a huge Greta Garbo fan – and it shows she has a sense of humor about herself, behind all that Swedish draw; she had a great sense of humor about herself. And I just love Melvyn Douglas; he’s wonderful in it."