Miss Julie

The fitful, sadomasochistic affair between the upper-class Miss Julie (Anita Björk) and her father’s valet, Jean (Ulf Palme), draws class warfare into the sexual realm. Alf Sjöberg’s daring cinematic experiments would seem to propel this stunning production of August Strindberg’s play far from the proscenium arch—but in fact remain faithful to the theater’s notion of unity of space, as Edgardo Cozarinsky noted: “Strindberg’s single act explodes in all directions—memories of the characters’ past, as well as their dreams, and even intimations of the future, are worked into an exacting structure of flashbacks (and one flashforward), where the past is always pressing upon the present.”