Ådalen 31

"Ådalen 31" is based on a real event. The workers at the paper mill in Ådalen go on a sympathy strike with the factory workers in another area, where the management wants to worsen the workers' conditions. Riots break out when, after many weeks of strike, the mill management sends for strikebreakers. Then the military is called in, which only makes the situation even worse. During a protest the military fires on the workers and kills five. This results in a general strike and the fall of the conservative government, the closing titles tell us. The film's message is that knowledge and education are the prerequisite for a society in which everyone is equal.

The film's main characters are a family whose head, the sensible Harald, is one of those killed. Everything is complicated by the fact that the eldest son Kjell has secretly been going out with the paper-mill manager's sweet daughter Anna, who has gone and got herself pregnant. Her mother resolutely takes Anna to an 'expert in women's diseases', where Anna has the foetus removed without the knowledge or consent of her father or the child's father.

It is obvious to compare the film with Ken Loach's works, but Widerberg is less indignant than Loach, who cannot see the slightest redeeming feature in those in power. Widerberg does not see things in such black and white. He portrays the manager in a rather more nuanced way. Anna's mother is probably the film's most unlikeable character.