The Cake General

This 2018 Swedish film, co-directed by Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson, is based on a real event. In 1984 Hans Pettersson of Köping decides to make the largest sandwich cake in the world to put his home town on the map. The idea is ridiculous and the film does not hide it; what it is actually about is a small town's fear of being invisible and one man's disproportionate answer to it. Mikael Persbrandt's performance manages to make the character both endearing and exhausting. What makes the film work in Sweden is how precisely it rebuilds provincial culture in the eighties; from outside, part of that layer is lost. The personal tone we would later see in Hammar's documentary about his father is already present. Who it's for: viewers who like Swedish comedy and provincial stories drawn from real events. Who it's not for: anyone outside the local cultural references, or who will find the protagonist's obsession wearing.