Artistically born in 1968, Stefan Jarl is fashioned as an individual and a cinematographer in an ambiance of social revolution and artistic examination. Conveying the principal petition of his time, the need to change the world and influenced by the emergence of a new cinema of rupture that needed to overthrow the existing structures and to create a new audience Jarl enlists in the art of cinema, with a conviction that cinema can accomplish this revolution. In his hands, the camera transforms into an antiauthoritarian weapon, which he uses to interfere in social and political matters, such as supersession, social oblivion, environmental catastrophes, and the disappearance of species throughout Europe as well as the traditional life of indigenous populations in the North.
Jarl desires to influence the audience and assist to change and better the world. He isn't limited to the production of films that criticize politics and society, but rather, he actively interferes in the system of production, distribution and screening, by creating a network to distribute and screen his films. In his work, Jarl presents his own idealistic vision of the world: social justice, solidarity, and peaceful coexistence between man and nature. His vision acts in an antimeditative manner on the social reality of his country and the way that Swedish society deals with these' situations. It manifests as a foundation for resistance, opposing modern trends and the status quo denouncing misleading information and prejudice and defending all those who "have no voice".
By initially denouncing the hypothetical objective dimension of documentaries, Jarl decomposes the myth of objective truth, grabbing every opportunity he can to clarify his own interventions and the fact that he himself constitutes part of what he films. Based upon the anthropological methodology of contributory observation, Jarl approaches his characters in order to comprehend them: he thinks and feels like them, develops life-long relationships with them, becomes influenced by their outlooks and in the end, sees them as his collaborators in the making of his films. Thus, he sets out a relationship based on trust between those in front and those behind the camera, thus creating the necessary grounds for a good documentary. At the same time, he acts like a historian of his time, denouncing the official versions of history and preferring to retrace it from the bottom up, or, in other words, from the viewpoint of ordinary people. Jarl's work is therefore a micro-history of different social group s (outcasts, misfits, the Lapp people, activists, etc) of his time in their natural environments.
In his effort to depict reality, Jarl incorporates fictitious elements, either by using a fictitious narration (like in the Misfits trilogy) or by impelling his characters to dramatize their narration or behaviour (The threat), therefore transgressing the boundaries of fiction and documentary. At the same time, he resorts to the use of the great verbal tool of cinema: editing. Through a verbal orchestration of images (which follows the tradition of directors such as Eisentstein, Vertov, Santiago Alvarez), Jarl skilfully arranges his images in order to portray reality. His images are rich in poetry and borrow from medieval and impressionistic art. Their beauty does not comprise an end in itself because Jarl is interested in what the images express, rather than how they look or how they are produced.
Jarl's work is deeply humane, modern and universal. His trilogy about the Misfits is appropriate for every society throughout time. The Misfits of the 60s' make room for the punks of the 90s'. The breach of the harmonious relationship between man and nature, the ongoing environmental catastrophes and the disappearance of the traditional lives of indigenous populations are emanations of a more general approach and considerations of our world's problems. The Mau-Mau population of 19th century Africa provides a point of reference for the 20th century Lapp population of northern Europe. The portrait of a Swedish artist who transforms his life into art is an idiom for any true artist. The conviction of the young activists in Sweden reflects the recent "7" of Thessaloniki. Therefore, the need for social solidarity and incorporation, the reverence of cultural dissimilarities, the comprehension of man's internal forces, the opposition to the devastation of our environment as well as any governmental high-handed acts, do not simply express the idealism and romanticism of a political artist such as Jarl, but rather our fate as a species. Jarl stands out as a lighthouse in cinema, shining light upon the human voyage, and guiding us away from pitfalls.
\Dimitris KerkinosFrom the book, Stefan Jarl, The contestation of authority Thessaloniki Film Festival Publications, 2004
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Stefan Jarl, född 18 mars 1941, dokumentärfilmare och filmregissör. Stefan Jarl är känd för att göra filmer med ett socialt engagemang. Stefan Jarl
