There’s always a sense of wide-eyed wonder to British filmmaker Mark Cousins’s films, most of them small, personal documentaries (‘I Am Belfast’, ‘Here Be Dragons’). He brings the same spirit to this part-doc, part-dramatic portrait of the Swedish capital. It sees musician Neneh Cherry wandering around the city as Alva, an architect trying to make peace with a recent tragedy in her life.
We hear new songs by Cherry and Alva’s inner conversation with her late father. Mostly it’s a chance for Alva (and, of course, Cousins) to muse on the city itself, its character and some of its architectural marvels and what they mean for the people living there. Really this is a poetic tour of a city by stealth. The mix of fact and fiction is a little confusing, but a strong sense of warm enquiry pulls it through.