I watched the documentary The Gullspång Miracle by Maria Fredriksson a few days ago. If it’s not obvious that stories from real life are often far more mysterious, intriguing, and baffling than most fiction1, this is a good reminder.
Note: If you like documentaries with bizarre twists and turns and many layers, this is for you. Go and see it without reading more. Some plot twists are revealed below.
It starts as a miraculous and happy story. A series of odd events leads to an astonishing and unlikely meeting of sisters who previously didn’t know of each other’s existence.
That’s when the filmmaker gets involved, with no idea of the weird twists and turns the story would take.
A sister had died years before and the family thought it was suicide. Meeting her previously unknown twin revealed more of the story. At the time, the police judged it death by natural causes but had not informed the family. From the scene and witness testimonies, it seemed far more likely to be a murder. Someone seemed to have tried to cover up by making it look like a suicide by putting medicine packaging around the body. (There was no trace of medicines in the body.) The police had inexplicably not followed up on any of it. How could the police be that incompetent? Why didn’t they follow up on it now?
They had thought the sister who died had committed suicide because of embezzlement, but it was likely murder, and she had earlier told someone that she was being falsely accused and set up for it. This seems to be worthy of a follow-up as well.
The reason given for why the twins were separated seemed flimsy and involved WW2 Nazis. In the documentary, there was no discussion or follow-up on this.
The sisters never seemed to discuss why they were half and not full sisters. What’s the story?
DNA tests were oddly and inexplicably contradictory. Did someone do something fishy?
One thread through the story is the tension between a traditional conservative Christian orientation and a more modern one. For instance, the Christian part of the family saw the act of suicide as terrible. (To me, it’s far worse if someone feels that’s the way out. Wasn’t Jesus all about empathy?)
It all ends as it started, with a striking synchronicity: a chandelier crashes to the floor right on the spot where the filmmaker had just been. It happened at an emotionally charged moment, just after new and disturbing information came to light. This seems to have been the last straw for the main characters, and they use it as an excuse to abandon their pursuit of the truth.
It’s a story full of loose ends, as life often is. One of the many questions I am left with is if the filmmaker will continue to pursue this story. It seems there is still a lot to uncover there, and that some are invested in it not being uncovered.
To me, the essence of the story is whether we trust and prioritize the truth. Is it more important to us to keep things as they are and not rock the boat, or to find the truth? Do we trust the truth? Do we trust we can handle it and that it will all work out for the best if it comes to the surface?
Do we trust, as Byron Katie says, that truth is kind?
NOTES
(1) Of course, there is always an element of fiction in stories from real life. They are told from a certain perspective, are based on limited and sometimes wrong information, enhanced for effect, and so on. There are also essential elements of real life in fiction. Good fiction has truth in it about human life and dynamics and the world.
With obvious hints at the start of the two sisters re-enacting events, one can wonder how m8ch creative freedom the makers took. Or, to go out on a limb, with SO many loose ends and weird coincidences and dramatic events from nazis to dna tests to falling chandeliers… what if this documentary is not a documentary?
Yes, it’s good to keep all options open. It is a very strange story, although life is strange sometimes. This story is stranger than fiction, which is why I suspect it’s real…