Freiheit   07. November 2009, 23 Uhr

5 minutes about freedom

When I got the invitation through my mobile to come here and contribute to your theme, freedom, I was out walking in my home-city, Stockholm, with my youngest grandchild in his cab and carrying a bag with our lunch food. And I realised that this is a very concrete and important aspect of my personal freedom: having close relations, being part of something that goes beyond my own life and, last but not least, living in a society where I can go and buy food for myself and people close to me. Very basic - but not a kind of freedom that everybody in this world can enjoy.

Film and freedom? To me films are important means to reflect on and understand the existential conditions of life. Many, many films raise the question "Who is free? What kind of freedom are we fighting or longing for? What are the threats against freedom on an individual or political level?" I will give you two examples. First:

A heart from Jenin. A Swedish artist, Cecilia Parsberg, made this film. Itīs a documentary, edited with special artistic inserts. A heart from Jenin tells the story of a Palestinian boy, Ahmed, 12 years, living in the refugee camp Jenin on the West Bank. In November 2005 he was shot by an Israeli soldier/sniper. He was taken to hospital in Haifa where he died. His parents decided to donate his heart to the hospital as a token for their wish for peace with Israel. An Israeli girl, 12 years, living in Haifa, got Ahmed's heart. So her life was saved. Ahmed's mother says that their son lives on through that girl. We also meet with the girl, Samah, and her family. The gift that Ahmeds family gave "drills a hole in the wall". That means - in spite of the oppression - a freedom inside the wall to choose to do good and freedom on the other side to accept the gift that is offered.

Second example: I come from the country of Ingmar Bergman, and his films have been important to me throughout life. He was not a fighter for freedom in a traditional meaning but he definitely was the master of dealing in his films with the most difficult existential questions. I often come back to one of his early films: The seventh seal, Das siebente Siegel. (1957 but as relevant today.)

In short: At a time of plague in the Middle Ages, a knight on a spiritual quest, plays chess with death. All the questions that we recognise from life are there: if there is a good God how can he accept all these evil and awful things to happen, like the violence, the plague, the poverty, the treachery? When death finally wins he takes the knight, his wife, his company with him in a long long dance/ein Todestanz. But there is still one scene left. The innocent jester/der Gaukler/ has been appearing from time to time. Now he and his wife and little son wake up to a new morning with this wonderful light, where they are free to continue their journey, free to interpret and to form life. I understand this as Ingmar Bergman's homage to freedom of art, of the cultural work that always needs to be done.

(Karin Nyberg Fleisher)

 e