Gösta Hellström was a prolific film critic who introduced new film movements into Sweden during the 1920s and 1930s. He also had a short career as a film director, and is especially known for his experimental short Tango (1932). Hellström is a representative of the early cinephilia and of a modernism that was never to be fulfilled in Sweden, at least not in terms of coherent film production. In the essay Hellström and his work are discussed as part of an ephemeral or fragmentary avant-garde.
