Writers: Kettil Kasang and John Skoog
Director: John Skoog
The Cold War has never looked as stunning as in John Skoog’s Redoubt. Shot in elegant black and white, this quiet, occasionally joyful film follows one man in his attempt to build a nuclear shelter in the heart of the Swedish countryside.
Semi-ostracised for his eccentricities, Karl-Göran Persson, based on a real person, spends his days collecting scrap metal to bolster the walls of his farmhouse, which he is slowly turning into a redoubt. He’s read If War Comes, the public information leaflet distributed by the Swedish Government and taken its instructions seriously. He’s in a hurry to finish the shelter before the siren sounds and the bombs fall. He’s certain that the apocalypse is close.
However, this really isn’t a film about Cold War paranoia, even as Karl marches to builder merchants to beg for more supplies or as he ferries train rails across fields that will reinforce the roof of his farmhouse. Rather, Redoubt is concerned with the cycles and rituals of agricultural life on the cusp of modernisation.
That’s not to say that there aren’t machines. The cogs and spinning wheels of an enormous thresher, churning out bales of hay, are a thing of beauty, a true work of art. Other implements, such as hods that are worn rather than carried or pulleys that raise sacks of corn from the ground to the backs of carts, are fascinating to see. When needed, Karl will stop preparing for nuclear war and join the villagers in tasks like burning the stubble. Cinematographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt captures every scene, but especially the burning stubble in evening darkness, with incredible clarity.
Children are Karl’s best friends. They take him at face value, believe in his fears for the future, and even half-heartedly build their own shelter in the middle of the woods. But on festival days, Karl, despite his odd behaviour, is welcomed to join the celebrations with the rest of the community, where he is accepted completely by the adults at least. The teenagers are a different matter.
With its focus on the seasons, Redoubt shares similarities with John McGregor’s novel Reservoir 13, which details the life of a village after a girl goes missing. Existence, both that of the other villagers and nature itself, will continue. In Skoog’s film, we know that the atom bomb will never come, regardless of how much Karl plans for the end of days. And in Skoog’s portrayal of Swedish Harvest Festival and of New Year’s Eve, there is something of Terrence Davies in the warm get-togethers and songs that everyone knows.
French actor Denis Lavant, best known for Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, Beau Travail and Holy Motors, brings a tough, yet vulnerable physicality to the role of Karl. He’s always sprinting around, heaving building materials up to his house. He’s rarely still, always on edge, waiting for the sound of the siren to cut through the silence. Lavant brings so much compassion to Karl that one almost hopes that his preparations won’t be vain.
It could be a depressing film – and parts of it are truly bleak – but Skoog offers the viewer and Karl a slither of a happy ending when someone knocks on his door as a storm wends its way through the valley. Undoubtedly, Redoubt is the film to catch at this year’s BFI London Film Festival.
Redoubt is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2025 from 8-19 October.
