Review of Rörelsen (2023)
Seen in 2023.
In reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, “alternative” health entrepreneurs Filip and Max start a political movement for “freedom” in Sweden. Max denies that the movement is political, but opposes social restrictions related to the pandemic and eventually founds a political party. Max also refers to a conspiracy of “certain bloodlines” secretly in power for 400 years, but he doesn’t say out loud that this is an antisemitic conspiracy theory. With a power base in New Age and mens’ rights activism, the pair establish their own Sturmabteilung, break the law, are shunned and economically devastated, fall out, and still pull 8000–9000 people to a demonstration in Stockholm before the pandemic subsides and the movement collapses.
A beautiful document of disingenuous populism in the age of mature social media. The ideologues are so poorly informed that they use the English language (“vibes”, “action”, “natural law”) instead of their own because they have absorbed their bad ideas from the Internet.