Strange story of a rocker's return hits the sweet spot

Atmospheric rock'n'roll songstress Gemma Ray has always done things differently – she plays guitar, for instance, with an eight-inch carving knife. So it's no surprise that her new single, a cover of a couple of tunes by the cult duo Sparks, is a little strange: it has ended up as Sparks covering Gemma Ray covering Sparks.

Gunnar Fischer was the great cinematographer of Ingmar Bergman's early period, shooting 12 of his films in as many years and matching his move from the neo-realist Port of Call through the expressionist The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries to the theatrical The Devil's Eye.

Readers review this week's big film

Listen buddy, what do you mean this road movie is just an old re-tread?

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Michelle Williams

The week's other Swedish movie is a disconcerting study in evasiveness. A man named Krister (Olle Sarri) wakes up on his bathroom floor covered in blood, and, willing himself not to investigate, goes to work: he's a driving instructor, though his volatile temper suggests you wouldn't want to be in a car with him.

They revolutionised British design though Ikea; gave us fast fashion at H&M and, of course, we thanked them for the music of Abba. Now the Swedes are taking over in the world of British page and screen.

The 22nd album by Sparks – never ones to do things the easy way – is a biopic in opera form of a legendary Swedish art-house director, with a cast of actor-singers augmenting Russell Mael’s vocals, and a complete orchestra backing Ron’s luxurious pianos. It’s a genre and format to which the brothers, whose work is so often described as “operatic”, are immaculately suited.

Commissioned by Swedish National Public Radio to devise an original radio musical with Swedish language content, Sparks siblings Ron and Russell Mael have significantly transcended their brief with The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, which has a resonance that goes some way beyond its parochial origins.

Geoffrey Macnab describes how his new book on the film director led him to discover the intense and volatile relationships the director had with his actresses

Imagine The Fast Show as directed by Ingmar Bergman, and you have a partial grasp on the whimsical world of Swedish film-maker Roy Andersson. His camera testifies to the fascination of watching people slowly fall apart. Some of these 50 or so vignettes are no more than snapshots of life's mundanity, while others deal in little dramas of confusion, dismay and alarming weather changes.

Some film-makers begin as writers and go on to the making of films. It is as if for such writers mere words are not enough to express their vision of life's moving images.