Overview: Ever since his debut was heralded as �a young master�s first masterpiece� by none other than Ingmar Bergman, director Lukas Moodysson has been hailed internationally as one of Sweden�s greatest filmmaking talents, delighting and confounding audiences in equal measure.

Available together for the first time, Moodysson�s eclectic filmography can now be appreciated as the work of a singular filmmaking voice, as avowedly uncompromising and unabashedly political as it is keenly observed, deeply felt and frequently hilarious.

Blu-ray Verdict: Moodysson�s first film, Fucking �m�l (released overseas as Show Me Love), was quickly heralded as a new queer cinema touchstone and one of the most authentic portrayals of youthful relationships on film.

�m�l is a small insignificant town where nothing ever happens, where the latest trends are out of date when they get there. Young Elin has a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to guys, but the fact is that she is inexperienced in that matter.

Another girl in her school, Agnes, is in love with her but is too shy to do anything about it. For a number of reasons, Elin ends up at Agnes� birthday party as the only guest. They have a girl�s night out together but after that Elin desperately avoids Agnes, refusing to even consider her own feelings toward Agnes.

To my mind what makes this movie touching and pure are the realistic performances and dialogs. Finally some teenagers really played by teenagers! I hate it in a movie when a 16 year old is played by an 25 year old, like very often is the case in Hollywood movies.

Alexandra Dahlstr�m and Rebecka Liljeberg portray their characters in a very pure way and make the emotions and the movie in general realistic. I also love the way Agnes her family is portrayed in the movie.

He swiftly followed this with the bittersweet, satirical 1970s-set Together, in which the inhabitants of a commune try to reconcile their ideals with their hearts� desires.

It is the 1970s and a group of very different individuals live together as a community. One of the members� sister, Elisabeth, needs a new place to stay with her children after having had enough of her alcoholic and abusive husband.

Elisabeth is neither a socialist nor a feminist nor into the green movement but ends up loving living in the community where they all learn from each other. The film pokes a little fun of people with strong ideals and square minds whether they be vegans, communists or people who absolutely disgust vegans or socialists.

Anyone who shared a house with many roommates in the 1970�s will particularly relate. Looking as if it�s at least partly improvised or a Real World documentation, each character�s motivations and actions are completely and hysterically believable; from the little kids taking turns playing Pinochet torture to the political uproar caused when the brother brings first an old TV set then meat into the house for the kids, to the various bed-hopping and nosy neighbors!

Indeed, the reactions and actions by the husband are a poignant counterpoint to the goings-on at the commune and really grounds the movie.

Having made a name for himself as the new master of tragicomic, feelgood humanism, Moodysson suddenly frustrated expectations with a trio of startlingly confrontational works; starting with the hauntingly bleak Lilya 4-ever.

While waiting for her mothers reply to take her to the USA, Lilya idles the time away smoking, drinking and having fun with her, too, outcast friend Volodya. In time, the chance of a new life becomes non-existent; her life is going nowhere.

Meeting a young man, she then finds a plane ticket in her hand and a new life in Sweden: a job, an apartment and prospects. All is not what it seems. There shall be work, there shall be housing and there shall be no escape.

Films like this reinforce my awareness of how much crap is spewed out of Hollywood. It makes me feel good that Europeans produce perhaps the best intellectualized and socially relevant cinema in the world, and of course Sweden has this reputation because of the master, so it is fitting that the mantle is perhaps being passed to a worthy successor.

The Acting? First rate, no criticisms here, it does not get in the way of the message, I guess in many ways that is what is important here. It looks, feels real. Perhaps, too real.

The closing sequence with the transition from life to death (with the throwing of the ball) is utterly moving, the eloquence, beauty and incredible cinematography, words cannot describe this. We, at this moment, are almost one with the film, a truly frightening experience conjured by a master of his craft.

Next up is the abrasive, and semi-improvised A Hole in My Heart. Eric is a teenager who lives in a shabby flat with his father, Rickard. Eric spends most of his time holed up in his room, blaring industrial music in order to drown out what�s going on around him.

He has just cause to be a bit disturbed by his surroundings - Rickard is an amateur filmmaker specializing in extreme sex videos, and he�s taken over the living room, where his emotionally disturbed friend Geko and a blank young woman, Tess are starring in his latest project.

As shooting progresses over the course of several days, Rickard and his cast lose track of the outside world and become increasingly desensitized to their own decadence. As the sexual play becomes more and more extreme, edging into violence, Eric feels no choice but to intervene.

Due to the relentless heaviness of the film, it unfortunately begins to have a somewhat numbing effect, losing it�s emotional engagement and verges on a becoming a endless stream of ever-more revolting images, as if challenging the audience with it�s shockingness.

Fortunately some humor does creep into the film at odd moments and ultimately keeps the film grounded. Another plus is that the film manages to avoid being overtly preachy for the most part. Moodysson doesn�t seem all that interested in pointing fingers, but rather seems to declare the entire world as being hopelessly dysfunctional and leaving it at that.

Then we get the avant-garde Container, narrated in its English version by Jena Malone (Donnie Darko). Poetic, experimental and different, Container is described by Lukas Moodysson as a black and white silent movie with sound and with the following words, A woman in a man�s body. A man in a woman�s body. Jesus in Mary�s stomach. The water breaks. It floods into me. I can�t close the lid. My heart is full.

Simply put, Container is a letter to God, a collection of thoughts and feelings, of gestures and memories, of beautiful moments, an exploration of life, love and death, a question, a tear, a naked soul turned inside out, all spikes outward, all pain real and raw and honest, nothing and everything, love and hate, hate and love, black and white, a diary, a manifest, an exploration of fame, and of justice, of real and unreal, and what�s real? And God, and Jesus, and Mary, and Joseph. And loneliness. And being together. Alone together. Together alone. Beauty and ugliness. Pure poetry.

Then he made his mainstream English-language debut with the expansive Mammoth, starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams. In New York, the immature family man Leo Vidales is a successful businessman, owner of the Underlandish, a successful website of digital games and married to Dr. Ellen Vidales, a dedicated surgeon of the emergency room of a hospital.

They have a daughter, Jackie, who is an intelligent girl that is raised by her nanny, the Filipino Gloria, who spends more time with her than Ellen. Gloria has two sons in the Philippines that miss her. When Leo need to travel to Singapore with his partner, Bob (Tom McCarthy), to sign a multi-million dollar contract with investors, Ellen operates on a boy stabbed in the stomach by his own mother and she feels connected to the boy and rethinks her relationship with Jackie.

Meanwhile Leo is bored waiting for the negotiation of Bob with the investors and he decides to travel to Bangkok and lodges in a rustic cottage on the seashore. Leo meets the young prostitute and mother, Cookie, and he has a one night stand with her. Meanwhile, Gloria�s ten year-old boy, Salvador, misses his mother and decides to find a job. His innocence leads him to a tragedy.

The ending left me a little dissatisfied, but it did tie all of the peripheral stories together as well as it could. I would definitely recommend this movie for its view on morality and the empathy to poverty.

Lastly, Moodysson returned to his roots with We Are The Best! (based on a graphic novel by his wife and �consigliere� Coco), the charming and funny tale of three schoolgirls starting a punk band in early-1980s Stockholm.

This is absolutely one of the freshest of the recent crop of movies. Simple and disarming, the gentle narrative takes you in and brings alive the stories of young people growing up in Stockholm in the �80s. We begin with two girls, Klara and Bobo, both of whom are somewhat invisible to the adults in their lives as well as to their peers.

They are creative enough to explore and experiment with the freedom that their marginal status paradoxically accords them. We see Klara, the dominant personality, challenged in subtle and direct ways by Bobo, who, though more reticent, is actually an equally strong character.

One of the most touching aspects of the film is the girls� decision to take in Hedvig, a talented classical guitarist who is more socially disconnected than they, as their close friend. Hedvig proves also to be their equal.

Together, the three girls literally ignite as they discover their ability to collaborate in forming a punk band and writing their own music, taking on largely innocent modes of rebellion to create their own niche in a world that mostly leaves them free to find their own way.

The girls are up to the challenge, with the result that the viewer�s time spent with them on-screen is richly rewarded. A highlight is the girls� theme song, Hata Sport (Hate the Sport) in which they argue that there are more important things in the world than the next sports competition and throwing your ball.

Actually, the real delight of the film is watching all three girls� personalities develop. A breath of fresh Scandinavian air.

High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all seven films
Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 audio for all films
Optional English subtitles for all films, plus English hard-of-hearing subtitles on Container and Mammoth
200-page hardback book featuring new writing by Peter Walsh, excerpts from the original press kits for each film, including interviews with and directors� statements from Moodysson, and essays on his films from a 2014 special issue of the Nordic culture journal Scandinavica by C. Claire Thomson, Helga H. L�thersd�ttir, Elina Nilsson, Scott MacKenzie & Anna Westerst�hl Stenport and Kjerstin Moody

Disc One:
2K restoration by the Swedish Film Institute, approved by director Lukas Moodysson and cinematographer Ulf Brant�s
New interview with Lukas Moodysson
New interview with star Alexandra Dahlstr�m
Did You Know She�s A Lesbian?, an appreciation by Dr. Clara Bradbury Rance, author of Lesbian Cinema After Queer Theory
Talk (Bara prata lite), a short film directed by Moodysson in 1997
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery

Disc Two:
4K restoration by the Swedish Film Institute from the original camera negative, approved by director Lukas Moodysson and cinematographer Ulf Brant�s
New interview with Lukas Moodysson
New interview with script supervisor Malin Fornander
New interview with editor Michal Leszczylowski
Deleted scenes
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery

Disc Three:
New interview with Lukas Moodysson
New interview with costume designer Denise �stholm
Guardian Interview with Lukas Moodysson, a Q&A with the director filmed at the London Film Festival in 2002
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery

Disc Four:
New interviews with Lukas Moodysson on both films
Lukas Moodysson Masterclass, an interview with the director filmed at London�s National Film & Television School in 2004
A Hole in My Second Heart, a behindthescenes featurette from 2004 Swedish and English narration options for Container
Inside the Container Crypt, a 2007 featurette on the themes of Container
Theatrical trailers and image galleries for both films

Disc Five:
New interview with Lukas Moodysson
New interview with line producer Malte Forssell
Promotional interviews with Moodysson and Gael Garcia Bernal from 2009
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery

Disc Six:
New interview with Lukas Moodysson
New interview with cinematographer Ulf Brant�s
A New Expression, a look at the background to the film by Swedish punk historian David Andersson
Q&A from the 2013 London Film Festival screening, featuring Moodysson and stars Liv LeMoyne and Mira Barkhammar
Theatrical trailer
Image gallery

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