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Victor is a 1998 short film (18 minutes) from Sweden.

Victor is a boy of maybe eight years old. He is in the hospital, where he is slowly dying of leukemia. Victor is obsessed by firemen and firefighting: his hospital bed is festooned with drawings of firemen, he plays with an empty fire extinguisher, and he dreams of being a fireman when he grows up.

Only he isn't going to grow up, because he's got barely a month to live. His mom, hoping to fulfill his dream, visits the local fire station and asks if Victor can come for a tour. Bosse, the irascible man in charge of the fire house, says that he can do better, and winds up making Victor an honorary fireman.


Tropes:

  • Book Ends: The same weird old patient at the hospital, pulling an IV pole and carrying a ping-pong paddle, appears at the beginning of the short and again at the end.
  • Brick Joke: The firemen are running a drill but Albin, the youngest one, is scared to slide down the pole. Bosse has to yank him down. Later, they're headed off to a real fire, but Albin's scared to go down the pole again. Victor the honorary fireman kicks him down the pole.
  • Call-Back: The first scene at the fire station has the whole crew running a mobilization drill. Later, when they're told that Victor isn't expected to last the night, they do another mobilization, getting in the fire truck and racing to the hospital to say goodbye.
  • Emergency Services: Firefighters. They're cool. Victor has a look of joy on his face when he gets to ride along to a real fire.
  • Hitler Cam: Used for the entrance of the mean head nurse, who makes Nurse Eva go look after other patients and threatens to take away Victor's fire extinguisher. It seems that at some point Victor set her hair on fire for the sake of a realistic fire drill.
  • Littlest Cancer Patient: Poor little Victor, dying of leukemia.
  • Match Cut: From Bosse shaking hands with Victor's mom to seal the deal, to Bosse shaking Victor's much smaller hand as he welcomes the boy to the fire station.
  • No Name Given: Victor's mom is called "Victor's mamma" in the credits.
  • Second-Face Smoke: Bosse blows some cigar smoke into Victor's mom's face, seemingly just to be intimidating, especially since he says he can do better than just showing Victor around the place.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Bosse is shown in a tight closeup, taking a long drag on a cigar, before he starts screaming orders to the other firefighters as part of a drill.

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