A portrait that mixes Canarians who worked in tourism in Maspalomas in the late seventies. The film was a catalyst for the take-off of Nordic tourism in the south of Gran Canaria in 1980 and remains in 2024 the biggest Swedish film success of all time. More than 2,5 million visitors must have seen 'Sällskapsresan' in cinemas and this summer it once again swept audiences on a Swedish TV channel. On YouTube you can read it with Spanish subtitles and among its actors there are Canarians who appeared in this somewhat coincidental way on the Swedish big screen. If it had been broadcast in Spain, given the low self-esteem that Canarians generally have, it would have been a scandal. The film is respectful of the Canaries and when some retrograde theory appears, the director was kind enough to have a Goth actress pretending to be a Canarian while her son speaks in a correct Canarian accent.
It was set at Christmas and was filmed in Playa del Inglés precisely at that time, where Stig Helmer Olsson (Lasse Åberg) makes his first trip abroad despite having a great fear of flying. Maybe there was something relatable enough for the average Swede in the early 80s. The Swedish record that still stands. The images from the south of Gran Canaria even allow us to see the entire process from the departure of a group of Swedes from Stockholm to Playa del Inglés to some actors playing Nordic businessmen speculating with land as a mockery. When the credits appear at the end of the film, the director placed images of Benidorm.
But intellectuals criticized the film. Rarely has the difference between what the public and critics think been as great as when 'Sällskapsresan' was released in Nordic cinemas in 1980. Critics were not so grateful and 'Sällskapsresan' received a cold reception in the press. Hanserik Hjertén of DN liked the film because he found it natural and warm, but at the same time stated that Lasse Åberg's "Lasse Åberg's view of Swedish tourists is largely uncomplicated and lacking in perspective, he is an amusing observer and "It hardly has any original whims either."
Jan Aghed in Sydsvenska Dagbladet was harsher and more ruthless. He saw "the silly, thin, stretched-beyond-breaking-point story, the uninspired dialogue, the tame, threadbare, traditional, laugh-out-loud jokes and the callous, comedic pacing within and between scenes...". The 1980 Swedish comedy was directed by Lasse Åberg. Starring Åberg, Jon Skolmen, Kim Anderzon, Roland Janson, Magnus Härenstam and Sven Melander. It is the first film in a series about and featuring the antihero Stig-Helmer Olsson (although a similar character appears in the 1979 film Repmånad, then under the name Helge Jonsson) and his friends. The film was released in Sweden on August 22, 1980.
