One of Dostoevsky’s ”terrible questions” is introduced in the novel ”Brothers Karamazov”. Ivan Karamazov tells a story about a happy community, whose happiness depends on the suffering of an innocent child. The description of how the child is tormented and punished is in the novel, I do not want to quote it here. The point is, no one is allowed to as little as comfort the child, lest the happiness of the whole community be put in jeopardy.

Akin to this is the Swedish film “The reunion”, by Anna Odell. It was shown in the international film festival in Venice 2013 and awarded the FIPRESCI prize "for the intelligent and engaging way in which [the film] blurs the boundaries between fiction and documentary and speaks about marginalization, bullying, and the complicated nature of group dynamics."

To me this film stands out as one of most important Swedish films ever (next to Gabriela Pichlers Eat, sleep, die and Lisa Aschans She monkeys). I see here an attack on the whole norm system constituting the stability of our society (not only the Swedish one, mind you). And the attack is the more powerful, since you do not know what here is authentic and what is fiction. As the FIPRESCI jury said: the border is blurred. Odell’s film is thus not just a “story” which you can be moved by, get emotional or critical over, and give you thoughts. Were it a story, there could be a possibility of escaping into phantasies: “Oh, I would have done this or that [and thus proved that I am a good guy]”. None of this. You come out completely bewildered. This bewilderment is what makes the film so concrete, whereas a conventional story would be abstract.

Of course, one can dismiss the film and Odell as crazy. Not that I am interested in such a person. If one is the least inclined to think one will react with bewilderment and anxiety: what are we humans up to? Do we really need someone to victimize, exclude and despise in order to feel that we belong?