A portrait of Swedish singer-songwriter José González, who is also part of the beat combo Junip, this low-key documentary plays like a cross between a home movie aimed at González superfans, a showreel demonstrating visual effects techniques and a video lookbook for a Scandinavian lifestyle brand specialising in leisurewear and throw rugs. In practice, that means this narratively unstructured piece splices together footage of González hanging out, reading or exercising as the camera pans slowly around the Swedish countryside where he lives in a lovely house. Sometimes we see his pregnant partner Hannele Fernström, an illustrator and designer, resting and reading a book. Occasionally, we follow the couple’s very young daughter Laura as she capers about in the grass and high-summer light while wearing adorable, covetable Scandi kids clothes or babbles charmingly.
Bedded under these sequences, González can be heard musing about his fragile mental health, his feelings about family life and anxieties about the future of the world. There are spells where he plays his breathy, Elliott Smith-y, Nick Drake-ish tunes on an acoustic guitar, which are pretty if a bit lyrically banal. Interspersed with all that are sequences where director Mikel Cee Karlsson creates panoramic shots of actors moving in slow motion or glitching like they’re trapped in fermatas, micro-loops of movement that confine them in moments of revelry, joy or, as the title hints, being attacked by a CGI tiger who takes off one unfortunate character’s leg.
It’s not clear what ties all of the above together apart from the sense of catastrophising fretfulness evoked in González’s music. But it’s all quite lovely to look at or even just listened to, making for something that can easily be experienced at home while the viewer is knitting or chopping vegetables.
• A Tiger in Paradise is released on 8 December on Mubi.
