by Dov Kornits
Scandinavia’s highest grossing documentary of all time, Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson’s The Last Journey has taken everyone by surprise, including its self-deprecating filmmakers.
“When Universal approached us about this, it was incredible,” says Filip Hammar [below, right] about their touching documentary The Last Journey being picked up by Universal for global release in cinemas. “We thought it was a prank first, but now, every day, we’re waiting for somebody to pull the plug. But unless they do, we’re going along for the ride.”
“Don’t give them any ideas,” adds Fredrik Wikingsson [below, left] when we say that we are surprised that the film is getting such a great push from Universal, who would normally trade in blockbusters. “They might pull the plug any minute! But seriously, we want this to become the biggest international non-English speaking documentary ever in Australia. Let’s do that!”
Based on what they have managed to achieve with The Last Journey so far, we wouldn’t bet against them.
Hammar and Wikingsson met when they were both writing for Swedish newspapers – remember those? They soon drifted into television, working on travel shows and reporting on human interest stories.
“We’re also best friends and when we started out, there weren’t too many duos doing reporting,” says Wikingsson. “We’ve just been doing things that we’re curious about and this time we sort of angle the camera towards ourselves a bit more than we had before. We were nervous about that.
“This is way more personal, but I think it’s like an honest curiosity and I think people feel that from our side,” adds Hammar, whose father is the main focus of The Last Journey. “I truly think that what I’ve experienced in my career by just meeting people, that those are my fondest memories and that’s why we love just meeting people. And in this film, it’s more of a family trip because Fredrik is almost family with my dad, but I think people maybe see that it’s not an act what we do. We’ve always been transparent with ourselves. Because if you are doing documentaries, you need to be transparent yourself if you want people to open up to you. But this time around, it is a heavier subject. The film is very funny as well. Do you agree? That sounded very boastful. It sounded almost arrogant.
“I got a few laughs, chimes in Wikingsson. “It’s a heavy subject, but it is I think very funny at times.”
The heavy subject is Hammar’s attempts to help get his ageing father, Lars’ mojo back. After retiring, the teacher virtually withers away, so Hammar decides to take him on a road trip to France, revisiting some of their best memories of the past.
Although the audience does not see them in the film, both filmmakers, who are in their early fifties, actually have kids of their own.
“We had an idea of maybe showing a circle of life type image at the end of Filip with his kids,” says Wikingsson. “But it felt too close to being the story about him and his father that it would become too fractured to bring in the kids at the end, make it over cute as well.”
“But I think it’s true though, that life is cyclical,” adds Hammar. “When you are young, before you have kids, you cannot even fathom what’s going to happen down the line. I might be more of a romantic than Fredrik is, but I truly can. Sometimes I hear myself telling the stories that my dad told me, I’m just waiting for myself to tell the Harry Belafonte story that’s in the film where we want our dad to retell that story…
“We actually said, ‘let’s make a film where people possibly when they leave the movie theatres, they will pick up their phones and send a text or call their parents.
“I think we all have that,” says Wikingsson. “We feel a lot of guilt. Why didn’t I call my mum today? I was supposed to do it. And then we call them and then it’s a really short phone call when your mum in the end says, ‘thank you so much for calling’. And it’s like, why? You don’t have to say thank you, but when you have kids yourself, it all comes back to you.”
“I’m in London now, my kids are in LA where I live actually,” says Hammar. “I send texts to my daughter every day and she doesn’t even respond. And then in the end, there’s just an Amazon link with some fake nails she wants me to buy. It’s karma…”
Hopefully karma works a treat for the filmmakers when the film is released outside Scandinavia. “It’s hard for any film to travel and especially a documentary,” says Wikingsson. “We take everything – like you watching it – as gravy for us. We didn’t expect this at all, so it’s gratifying and surprising.”
“We never thought about this when making the film,” adds Hammar. “The film has overdelivered for us already. But of course, once you experience this, when you have screenings internationally, you can see that this really resonates with people everywhere. So, the journey continues. My dad just represents any dad or any parent or any teacher … maybe there is a language barrier. But I have high hopes for Australia – I really hope you nail it for us!”
Go see The Last Journey, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll call your parents after.
The Last Journey has preview screenings, featuring Q&As with Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson. Sunday 16th February at Hayden Orpheum Cremorne, and on Tuesday 18th February at Cinema Nova and The Astor Theatre.
The Last Journey is in cinemas 27 February 2025
