The movie is very slow. It’s set on an island that’s not far from Stockholm. A middle-aged woman (played by the director’s mother, Ulla Edström) lives on this island. In the morning, she wakes up, puts on a thick white robe, walks through the dusky woods, reaches some rocks on the edge of a sea, removes her clothes, walks into the freezing waters, swims for a few seconds, walks out (naked body white and shivering), dries herself with a towel, and returns to her cozy home. In this movement (which is repeated three times in the movie), we vividly hear the air, the leaves, the water, the birds, and the other forms of life on the island. The star of this movie is the sound person, Kento Oiwa. You can close your eyes and still not miss the essence of this movie, still get a good sense of what’s going on.
The Anchorage is not about nature in the traditional sense. The world that Ulla lives in is not disconnected from the world of democratic politics, global economics, and digital technology. Yes, she does catch, gut, and cook fish, but she also shops at a computerized grocery store, recycles her cans, visits a local restaurant, and listens to news stories about the state of the American economy, popular Swedish exports, and scientific breakthroughs. This movie is not about rural life, but about life in a society that has reached a state of perfection. The Anchorage is about how time is spent in utopia.
What is it like to live in a society that has almost no substantial difficulties or disturbances? Sure, death and loss are still part of this world (Ulla has a daughter but she lives alone—clearly her partner is in the past and not in the present). But the role of death in utopia is not to inspire terror but to inspire contemplation of the rhythms of the universe, the differences between the current season and a previous one, the appearance of a stranger, the mood of a moment. This is the life we all want to have, but it seems that only Swedes have mastered it. In one scene, the trees are mad and furious with wind. Branches rise and fall, the wind howls, the sea rages in the distance. But the woman is in her warm home, doing something that looks like a hobby. Nothing outside can disturb her. Nothing. This is paradise. 
Sounds like Marxist horseshit to me.
Paradise sounds monastic: a long contemplation in anticipation of death. I have a little more ambition. Also, let’s not forget that the ostensible utopia of Sweden depends utterly on the demand of the global market for its abundant natural resources, as well as its industrial products, like its jet fighters, furniture, and automobiles. You can’t criticize the American middle class and the praise the Swedish way of life because you simply cannot have one without the other.
When was the last time you really tried to dig deep on something, Chuck? Everything you do lately is just lazy rubbish; sophomoric make-the-deadline rubbish. I miss the old Chuck that illuminated curious encounters in Police Beat.
That was another fine installment of Soylent Mudede.
Can I have my shot now? The trees are so pretty…
Sweden a Utopia?Hardly:For Eutopia to ever come to pass it must encompass all humans,not a few living upon the Asia’s European Peninsula.