In this mixture of fiction and cinema verité, sociologist Lena Nyman conducts a series of interviews about Sweden’s class structure while embarking on a succession of sexual encounters with a friend of her father’s. Sjöman, a former assistant to Ingmar Bergman, cross-bred cinematic strains of 1960s political awareness (interviews with Martin Luther King Jr. and Olof Palme, Sweden’s future Prime Minister), meta references (on moviemaking), and sexual explicitness. In the U.S., the film was held up in customs and rated X, leading to a 1969 release earning cultural currency and box-office success in mainstream art theaters.

In Swedish with English subtitles

DCP courtesy of the Swedish Film Institute