Review of movie “Where can we live”
about living with electrical hypersensitivity

Keywords: electrical sensitivity, living with, movie, review, housing, work, accommodation

The movie follows two young women over three years. Both women are married with small children and both are struggling to live in a society with ever-increasing levels of radiation from wireless gadgets and their base stations.

Linn is an engineer who is trying to stay employed and make it in the big city. She changes jobs multiple times to find a work situation that works for her, but it is difficult. At one place, she was told that a small transmitter right outside her new office was not used, but it was. She also moves around the city trying to find a low-radiation area, but the place she found didn’t stay low for long.

Linn seeks solace at a local church, but eventually the church installs a microcell (a miniature cell tower that serves just one building) and she can no longer go there.

Finally Linn and her family move to the country and rent a house. The house works very well and she sleeps much better than in the city. Both she and her husband had to change jobs. Her new job is at a place where they help her by installing incandescent light bulbs, turn off the wireless network and give her a separate office in the safest part of the building. She also uses a shielded computer and can work from home when she needs to. This all works very well.

Lisa had to give up her studies at the university and move her family to a remote farmstead in a forested area. The farmstead has no electricity at all and they use candles, a root cellar and a woodstove instead. She feels well there, but she can’t go far without running into trouble from power lines and transmitters.

Both Linn and Lisa tried to get help from the medical system. Lisa was told she had to go through a lengthy psychological treatment which she was unable to do because it was far from her home and not in a safe location, so the authorities refused to give her financial help and she became dependent on her husband. She finally finds a sympathetic doctor, who even does house calls.

Linn also had trouble with the doctors, who were overbearing and dismissive. The waiting room at one clinic was so bad she asked to wait outside, but they would not allow it.

When Linn needed to give birth, she got the staff to turn off the wireless network and she did fine the twelve hours she was at the birthing clinic. Lisa found a clinic which had a shielded room, but the staff insisted on using all sorts of electronic monitors so Lisa gave birth at the farmstead with the help of a midwife. It went very well.

A big storm rolled through the area around Lisa’s farmstead and knocked out the electricity for 300,000 people. With no electropollution at all, she felt better than ever and had lots of energy for a week, until the power was restored to the area. However, the storm felled a great number of trees, removing the shielding they gave her against a distant transmitter.

The movie ends with changes in the lives of both the women, but on a hopeful note.

The movie is 42 minutes long and filmed in Sweden. The dialog is in Swedish with English subtitles. The original Swedish title is Gilla Läget? The movie gives a powerful impression from seeing the struggles of the two women in the prime of their lives. They do not come across as hysterical, malingerers or any of the other labels nay-sayers like to use on people with EHS. They do not succumb to self-pity, though we can see it is tough to have to live isolated from society.

The movie can be shown to people who do not have EHS to give them an idea what it is like to live with this illness.

It does not detract from the stories that they take place in Sweden — the problems are universal, even though the language and architecture differ. The only part that needed an extra explanation to a non-Swedish audience was Lisa’s root cellar.

A brief excerpt is available on YouTube.com (search for “where can we live”). The movie was produced by Eira Film and directed by Helene Aastrup Samuels.

The DVD can be ordered directly from Eira Film in Sweden by sending US$25 to eirafilm@tyfonmail.se using PayPal. For other currencies, inquire at the same e-mail address.

2015