Fredrik Sahlin: "None of us have cinematic shoulders wide enough to shoulder his mantle"

"Are you going to Cannes this year?". Me and Nils Petter Sundgren moped the Sveavägen south after proving a press screening at the cinema Grand, and I asked that slent question that has become a tradition among us critics. Meaning: Will you be watching the Cannes Film Festival this year too?

"Of course," said Nils Petter, "there are only two valid reasons not to go to Cannes: if you sit in the crib - or are dead ..."

It has been a while since we saw his usual figure in the press shows, but until just a few years ago he was one of Sweden's foremost and most knowledgeable critics. For many years earlier, he was basically the only one. Mr Film! Especially SVT's Film Chronicle but also as a chronicler and writer. Now we are as many reviewers as any and none of us have cinematic shoulders wide enough to shoulder his mantle.

Karln even received a Goldbag in 2007, for long and faithful service.

I was young when I first discovered Nils Petter Sundgren. Far too young to have any opinion about his deed then, but the Film Chronicle I still looked at, partly because from an early age I loved to be sucked into the film's escapist world, but just as much because Nils Petter often saw to choose movie clips with a lot of nudity in, when there were such available. At least it seemed that way, but maybe it was my teenage brain that interpreted it that way.

Later he became a guiding star. An example in the art of explaining complex events in simple but powerful words. He was the film-digging people's man, as a reporter, critic and film buyer here at SVT he drew around the world, met all the big movie names, took home their words and works for us.

In 2010, I took the car out to Nils Petter's summer visit in Tyresö, sent by Tidningen Vi to interview the Nestor in conjunction with his writing his memoirs "Not only bio".

I myself was in a period where I had serious doubts about my, our, profession. Sure, it's a rewarding, inspirational privilege! - employment but ... is it even a job? Getting paid to watch, and enjoy, film. Okay, those who have a little ambition are not just looking, they are analyzing, putting in context, maybe opening an eye to a new perspective.

But shouldn't something more socially useful be done?

Nils Petter Sundgren himself had been drawn with similar thoughts. Towards the end of the mentioned memoirs it says that "It is without doubt that a doctor is of greater benefit to mankind than a film critic". When I asked him to develop, I realized that he had already left behind such academic wrestling:

“All people probably want to see their profession as very important, but then when you are done with it you don't have to think it anymore. You see the job with greater distance, and even yourself. But I have actually added a sentence in the latest version, now it says that a doctor certainly does more benefit to humanity, but on the other hand he or she can also do more harm ... "

Nils Petter Sundgren turned 90.