Expected more

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The book, it's art-work, the background of Astrid Lindgren of 1st worldwar times one the side. The fantastic series and film with great actors on the other side make the film to a swedish classic which I already saw as child on TV. I could write pages but the film and the series are deeply underestimated and something which went lost in our times.

Even though these are movies primarily made for kids, well-known to everyone especially the younger generations in Sweden, they keep a surprisingly high quality. The overall scenery, family situations, social climate etc gives a good impression of south-Sweden countryside life during the post World War One era, nearly a century ago.The movie has political messages to the viewers dealing with subjects such as poverty and class struggle. For instance there is a constant underlying conflict between the well-off middle class Engström family (Madicken and Lisabet) and the city mayor and his wife as well as between the Engström children and the children in the poor districts.The choice of child-actors is stunning, despite her low age Lisabet in particular acts extremely authentic and gives the impression of really being the younger sister looking up to Madicken. Unfortunately the hunt for perfect actors has forced the director to compromise their accent for acting. The both actors speaking with a clear Stockholm accent and not even close to the accent typical for the villages of southern Sweden.

I have seen the two Madicken (Madita) movies on PAL-2 DVD (a single DVD featuring both movies in both Swedish & German languages). When I played the Swedish-language versions (nope, I don't understand absolutely any Swedish word), I heard they said Madicken instead of Madita, even though the titles said Madita (although I noticed these titles were added up by hand by the Germans). But the cast listing on the credits was unaltered by the Germans, and it said Madicken. So how did it translate as Madita in Germany? Since I don't understand Swedish, I can't exactly tell what were they about, and my German is just a beginner's German, so I might not anyway understand them all until I hone my college German... This one is appropriate for all families, including American ones (since this second movie has no nudity of any kind as it happens with the first one...)