This is an affecting masterpiece about one woman's quiet liberation, writes MICHAEL DWYER

'NO ONE DIED of a bit of a belt," declares Sigfrid Larsson (Mikael Persbrandt), the paterfamilias defending his propensity for domestic violence in Jan Troell's enthralling family saga. Sigfrid epitomises the strict patriarchal society of early 20th-century Sweden, which will be familiar to anyone who has seen Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Attitudes in Ireland back then would not have been any different.

A former sailor who works hard at the docks in Malmo, Sigfrid is a complicated, insecure figure who changes from caring husband and father when sober to moral hypocrite when he squanders his earnings on booze. His downtrodden wife, Maria (Maria Heiskanen), somehow remains resilient, lovingly looking after her ever-growing family and eking out a pittance as a seamstress.

Maria’s life is transformed, although she doesn’t realise it at the time, when she wins a box camera in a raffle. Her impulse is to sell it and get food for her children, but a local photographer (Jesper Christensen) discourages her and introduces her to the marvels of the medium. “Not everyone is endowed with the gift of seeing,” he tells her.

One of those is Maria’s sneering spouse, who resents that the camera represents a lease of life for her. She pursues her new hobby avidly but mostly clandestinely, taking photographs of her children and her neighbourhood and developing them by night while Sigfrid sleeps off his drunkenness. And her prowess with the camera becomes an unexpected source of vital income.

As Everlasting Momentscelebrates the beauty of still images, it is formed in a succession of striking moving pictures, impeccable visual compositions indelibly captured by director Troell himself, a rare film-maker who operates the camera on his movies. He simultaneously celebrates Maria in all her humanity, perseverance and inner strength, and the transformative impact the box camera has on her tough life.

Maria is based on the great-aunt of the director’s wife, Agneta Ulfsäter Troell, who conducted extensive interviews with Maria’s eldest daughter, Maja, the film’s narrator. Expressively played with compelling presence by Heiskanen, Maria is observed with an affection that the viewer cannot help but share, and without any recourse to sentimentalising her situation.

Maria's story is set against the social and political upheaval of the era as this captivating film spans 21 years with the accumulating power of a masterful director at work. Everlasting Momentsis the kind of classically formed cinematic storytelling of which it can be said ruefully that they don't make like that anymore – or at least not very often.

Directed by Jan Troell. Starring Maria Heiskanen, Mikael Persbrandt, Jesper Christensen, Callin Öhrvall 15A cert, IFI/Light House/Screen, Dublin, 131 min