Despite this being Mark Cousins’ first fictional feature Stockholm,
The story, such as it is, features the acting debut of singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry as Alva. An architecture tutor, Alva is due to give a lecture on the anniversary of a traumatic road accident that still haunts her. Spontaneously she does a bunk, wandering the streets and parks of Stockholm narrating her innermost thoughts and feelings to her late father. As an architect Alva is also able to relay the details of the city’s various building with a detail that is surely fascinating to architecture students and no one else. Makes one wish she had just gone ahead with the lecture.
Alva’s journey is broken up by musical interludes, featuring existing tracks and new compositions by Cherry herself. These go a long way to boosting the atmosphere, bringing Stockholm to life in a way that Cousins’ footage sadly cannot. Ultimately, that’s the thing that kills Stockholm, My Love. In the past, the documentary director has lacked either the need or the will to economise for the sake of narrative. A fault all too clear in his first work of fiction. Shots linger unnecessarily, his architectural trivia fails to enhance the story and too much time is spent between the small number of plot points.
Stockholm, My Love is an interesting experiment for Cousins’ and Cherry. However, it does a far better job of demonstrating the talents of the latter and highlights the limits of the former. Cousins’ documentaries will remain his strongest work for some time but he does show potential for capturing setting. Maybe that’s all he wants to accomplish with Stockholm, My Love, it’s just a shame that for a film, that’s not enough.
Stockholm, My Love is released on June 16th.