Screen time for the secondary characters is, naturally, reduced in the film adaptation, but you get a good sense of what each girl is going through outside saving the world – especially Vanessa, who is in my Top 5 Female Characters of All Time list. The books are also wonderfully diverse, especially in terms of LGBT characters, with a central same-sex relationship – and Minoo is half Iranian, an ethnicity not often represented in European YA. But Sara and Mats have managed an incredible feat in making each voice distinct, and each character so well-written, that it soon becomes easy to get a handle on everyone. It took me a while to work out who was who, as each of the girls gets a turn narrating at some point in the series (in limited third-person) and it can feel like a lot of people to take in, especially as each has other characters in their story, from parents and siblings to partners and futile crushes. We’ve seen all-male narratives plenty of times, but the film industry seems more reluctant to put out all-female counterparts many films, sadly, don’t even pass the Bechdel test. Although I might call Minoo the “main” character, that’s more to do with her role than with the amount of attention devoted to her by the authors, which is roughly the same as that given to the others.
It’s not often that you see a book or a film with such a large number of female protagonists.
The “Chosen Ones” plot is familar, but the enthralling thing about these books, and what makes them so memorable, is their intense focus on relationships, personal troubles, and character. You sink into this backwater industrial town, where mysterious forests and grotty buildings all come together, and look into the lives of six young women – Ida Holmström, Rebecka Mohlin, Vanessa Dahl, Minoo Falk Karimi, Anna-Karin Nieminen, and Linnéa Wallin – as they learn that they’re witches, chosen to stop evil coming into the world. They’re big, thick, slow-burning novels, the sort best read on a rainy day, that reel you in and never let you go.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I’m a really big fan of the books.
I was lucky enough to be invited to a private industry screening with subtitles, as the film isn’t officially out in the UK. Elfgren ( sarabelfgren) and Mats Strandberg ( matsstrandbergauthor). So today I had the pleasure of seeing Cirkeln ( The Circle), a Swedish urban fantasy film based on the bestselling Engelsfors trilogy – The Circle, Fire and The Key – by Sara B.
0 kommentar(er)
