Lakki: The Boy Who Could Fly

By: Raymond Murray
In-House Review - May 15 2007

Svend Wam's film about a troubled youth's struggle towards spiritual ascent not only features cuties taking their clothes off, also of interest to gay men are a bisexual gym instructor and a nasty child . Lakki, an attractive 14-year-old is in the throngs of a nervous breakdown. His mother is mercurial at best when it comes to care and support and his yuppie father is an unreliable jerk. His search for understanding leads Lakki into the apartment of a mousy, middle-aged man, who, when he makes the moves on the troubled boy, is beaten senseless. What redeems this drama, besides the nudity, is the outstanding cinemtatography and magical realism. (Norwegian with English subtitles)

By: Amos Lassen

"Lakki: The Boy Who Could Fly"
A Strange, Interesting, Funny Film
Amos Lassen
"Lakki" is a special film. It is surreal as it tells the story of a fourteen year old boy who dreams of escaping his unhappy home where he suffers sexual abuse (from his mother's boyfriend who is also his swimming coach). One day, as if by magic, he finds himself having feathered wigs and he can fly away metaphorically.
"Lakki" is one of the strangest films I have ever seen but that does not take away from its quality. As Lakki deals with his crazy and selfish parents, he is growing up physically. His mother manages to become involved with weird men and she speaks to her son as if they are friends and not mother and son. When she becomes involved with Lakki's gym teacher, we learn that he has been sexually abusing her son. Lakki's dad is about the same-mixed up and foolish. He is an irresponsible womanizer who is unsympathetic to his son's needs and pain. Lakki spends most of his time alone, sometimes coming into contact with a cast of eccentric and odd characters that he meets on the street.
One day Lakki discovers angel wings growing out of his back and they come and go as he does the right thing. It seemed to me that I was watching a fairy tale although I did not catch the moral.
Some of the visuals are absolutely unbelievably good and the characters are fascinating. There is a great deal of homo-erotic imagery which seemed to me to both dumb and self-effacing.
Anders Borchgrevink who plays Lakki has an odd and interesting screen presence and he is totally believable as the angry, abused teenager. He is also responsible for the humor in the film. Lakki's mother played by Nina Gunke is marvelous and not at all bad to look at. All of the cast members are good looking and it is fun to hear spoken Norwegian. It's a strange movie but I recommend it highly.
There are many very funny moments but the movie would have been much funnier if it had been done as satire and full of irony.