The Boxer (1965) was the poet Bo Jonsson’s first film. It was completed as he studied at the new prestigious film school of the Swedish Film Institute. The film is a condensation of Jonsson’s main themes, that of time and presence. As a passionate gambler, he celebrated intense presence, the moment when time as we know it ceases to exist. In The Boxer, this is staged through the spectacle of boxing, where the fierce, physical and blissful presence is just waiting for its obliteration. Film, like life, has a definitive time.