full movie here

Beautifully framed and enthusiastically edited, The Swedish Theory of Love discusses, criticises, and presents the idea of loneliness in Sweden through love, family, and communal values. The film talks about loneliness through unconventional topics such as artificial insemination, the elderly living alone, cases of people dying and only to be discovered years later, and a Swedish surgeon finding happiness in Ethiopia.

Sweden is well known for its welfare system. But while many other countries’ institutions of welfare state focuses on family units, Sweden’s welfare state focuses on the alliance between the state and autonomous individuals. This ideology is called Statist individualism. Coined by the historians Henrik Beggren and Lars Trägårdh, Statist individualism is the idea that a strong state and individual freedom are not mutually exclusive, and that with assistance from the welfare state, a person can freely choose to live their life the way they envision.

Part of the focus on the individual over the family unit comes from a manifesto written by a group of Social Democratic politicians in 1972: “The Family of The Future” (“Familjen i framtiden: en socialistisk familjepolitik”). The principle of the manifesto was simple: every individual is to be regarded as autonomous, and not as the appendage of a caretaker such as a husband, parent, or child. The idea is that no one should have to be forced to be in any relationships because of economic needs.

Now, after 40 years since its conception and implementation, Director Erik Gandini examines the problems that came out of this social system.  While modernity has brought Swedes more personal independence, Swedes lost the ability to connect with each other. The Swedish Theory of Love argues that this kind of independence is perhaps the root of all loneliness. Through the lenses of Director Erik Gandini, we see a somewhat melancholic and unusual side of Sweden.

Cinema Escapist writer Emily Hsiang sat down with Director Erik Gandini for an in-depth talk about The Swedish Theory of Love.