Madicken på Junibacken (1980)

The wealthy girl Margareta “Madicken” Engström, 7, lives at Junibacken, a farm in a small Swedish town, with her little sister Lisabet, 5, their parents Kajsa and Jonas Engström, editor of the newspaper Arbetets Härold, and their maid Alva. It is Mama Kajsa’s birthday, and the family celebrates with a picnic in a field of cowslips. A herd of bull calves suddenly appears and chases the whole family until they climb up into two birch trees for safety. On the neighboring farm, Lugnet, lives unemployed alcoholic Emil P. Nilsson with his wife Emma and their 15-year-old son Abbe, whom Madicken is very fond of. One day Abbe tells Madicken that he is clairvoyant, and they decide to meet in the washhouse one night to find out whether Madicken is clairvoyant too. Abbe claims that his great-grandfather, Count Kråk, haunts the place and guards a buried treasure. That same day, Madicken starts claiming that a boy in her class named Rikard (who in fact does not exist) teaches inappropriate songs, eats erasers, uses Madicken’s galoshes as boats, and spills ink on her apron—when in reality these are blatant lies to cover up the fact that she committed the misdeeds herself. One day Lisabet pushes a pea so far up her nose that it cannot be got out again, so they have to walk to Doctor Berglund’s. On the way, Madicken and Lisabet happen to meet Madicken’s mean schoolmates Mia and Mattis, and a fight breaks out. It ends with Madicken being the one who needs to see the doctor, with a bleeding nose. The film ends with Madicken getting the idea of flying with an umbrella from the woodshed roof, “like they do when they jump from airplanes,” and nearly killing herself. She survives with a concussion and, by a miracle, gets to go on the planned school outing, which had been canceled on the first day Madicken was forced to stay in bed (because the schoolteacher had also suffered a concussion after falling down the stairs).