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In 2005 Norway celebrates its
100th anniversary as an independent nation; in 1905
the Swedish-Norwegian Union was dissolved, and Prince
Charles of Denmark was installed as King Haakon VII
of Norway. Cinema, of course, was invented just ten
years before that, so it could be said that process
of introducing the new medium into Norway went alongside
that of creating a separate national identity for
the new nation. Although a Skladanowsky cameraman
had a show in Oslo (then Kristiania) in April, 1896,
film production had a relatively slow start in Norway.
Around 1920, feature filmmaking began in earnest,
with several films — The
Growth of the Soil and Raid
on the Bergen Express — finding success
with local audiences. Norwegian films at this time
were overwhelmingly rural stories; using to full
advantage the country’s
spectacular landscapes; the films emphasized themes
such as the struggle against natural elements, or
the impact of outsiders on isolated communities.
The coming of sound in the early 30s brought with
it more urban-set stories, such as The
Big Christening,
as well as some important literary adaptations, such
as The Defenceless. During WWII filmmaking
came under the control of the occupying German army;
with few exceptions, most films produced were harmless
comedies. After the war a number of films dramatized
the Norwegian resistance, and several of these — We
Leave for England,
The Battle for Heavy Water, and the Oscar-nominated
Nine Lives — are among the Norwegian
cinema’s
most enduring classics. The 50s saw a sharp increase
in production, especially of a series of popular
comedies that offered reflections on what was by
then a rapidly changing nation. Growing more prosperous
and increasingly involved in world affairs, Norway
was losing its sense of itself as a rural, isolated
nation. Changes in international film styles also
had their influence, from the modernist storytelling
of The Hunt to the New Wave-inflected Liv.
Today Norway produces about 15-17 feature films a
year, covering a wide variety of styles and subjects;
many are often co-produced with Scandinavian or other
European partners. Norwegian films are frequently
featured in international film festivals, and 1999
saw three Norwegian films — Junk
Mail, Mendel, and Insomnia —
commercially released in the U.S.; Insomnia was
later re-made in English by Christopher Nolan. Interspersed
throughout this historical survey of Norwegian cinema
are a number of Norway’s finest recent works,
such as Kissed by Winter, Uno and Hawaii,
Oslo — all excellent
signs that the next 100 years promises to be even
more luminous.
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The year 2005 marks the centennial
of Norway, 100 years since the dissolution of the
union that made the country part of Sweden. An important
anniversary, a time for reflection: so artist and
writer Odd Borretzen offers us in Too
Much Norway a kind
of guided tour through the highs and lows of being
Norwegian. Full of sharp humor and embarrassing insights,
Langlo and Endresen’s film brings together some terrific
archival footage with revelations of sides of the
seemingly quiet kingdom most foreigners would never
expect existed. At the heart of this meditation on
Norway and “Norwegianness” lies a more serious question:
What will it mean to be Norwegian 100 years from
now? Will small countries — even prosperous ones,
like Norway — be able to maintain some semblance
of uniqueness and identity?
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Sat Nov 12: 1:30
Mon Nov 14: 5:00
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“Wind and snow provide the
symphonic bass line for Skouen’s masterpiece, Nine
Lives. Based on the true exploits of Jan Baalsrud,
Nine Lives brings its indestructible hero
into direct conflict with the Nordic winter. Ballsrud
falls into the hands of the Germans when he and a
group of commandos try to land in occupied Norway
in March, 1943, and are betrayed by a local shoemaker
loyal to the Quisling regime. He escapes, and tries
to remain unidentified in his native country, sheltering
with various families and trying to link up with
other resistance fighters… Few Nordic films
have realized the visual potential of the mountain
landscape with such distinction as
Nine Lives. Unclogged by dialogue, Skouen’s
narrative proceeds with classic simplicity against
stark natural landscapes… The film triumphs
by virtue of the visual and aural language that Skouen
conjures up to match the almost mystical quality
of Baalsrud’s
defiance of his fate.” – Peter Cowie, "Norway," in Scandinavian
Cinema.
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Sat Nov 12: 3:20
Sun Nov 20: 6:40
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An extraordinarily assured debut
feature, Sara Johnsen’s deeply moving Kissed
by Winter is the
story of Victoria, a doctor living a quiet, reasonably
happy life with her husband and son in Oslo. One
day something happens to upset her well-ordered life;
needing space to come to terms with what’s happened,
Victoria heads to a small village, where she sets
up a new practice and tries to forget her past. One
day she’s called upon to examine the body
of a young man found dead in a snowdrift; he turns
out to be the son of an Iranian immigrant family
living in town. The family’s grief affects Victoria,
and the more she looks into the case, the more possible
it seems that the young man’s death might not have
been an accident. Annika Hallin as Victoria gives
a terrific performance, beautifully incarnating a
strong, confident professional whose work life increasingly
becomes an excuse to deny having a personal one.
Sara Johnsen captures Victoria’s gradual emotional
transformation with an amazing subtlety and grace.
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Sat Nov 12: 5:15 (Intro by actress Annika Hallin)
Sat Nov 19: 7:10
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The final film by the
remarkable Edith Carlmar turned out to be the work
that introduced the world to one of cinema’s most
magnificent actresses — Liv Ullmann. A ravishing
20-year-old when she filmed this, Ullmann radiates
a sensuality that alternates between innocence and
a dark seductive power. The illegitimate daughter
of a bitter mother, Gerd (Ullmann) attracts the attention
of Anders, a student from a good middle-class family.
Defying his parents, who strongly disapprove of Gerd,
Anders takes her on a trip to a cottage deep in woods.
There, their relationship flowers; Carlmar includes
provocative scenes of the two young people together
that must have been shocking for contemporary audiences.
The isolated world they create at the cottage seems
too good to be true, and it turns out it is; their
idyll is eventually interrupted by a passing vagrant
and the concern of their parents. The bad girl/good
boy plot may seem typical of the era, but Carlmar’s
sincere celebration of the truth and beauty of Gerd
and Anders’ love for each other makes The
Wayward Girl deeply touching.
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Sat Nov 12: 7:15 (intro by Liv Ullmann)
Tue Nov 22: 1:30
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Hailed by Variety as
one of the 10 most promising directors working today,
Pål Sletaune starts off in his new film Next
Door in the vein
of offbeat comedy that characterized his earlier
films Junk Mail and You
Really Got Me,
then gradually moves into darker, David Lynchian
territory that exposes a new side to Sletaune’s already
impressive talent. After breaking up with his girlfriend,
John (Kristoffer Joner) gets better acquainted with
the two young women who live next door. They invite
him into their odd, maze-like apartment, and drop
some strong hints that they know far more about John
than he could have imagined. Soon, John realizes
that his neighbors have been expecting his arrival
into their very private world for quite a while.
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Sat Nov 12: 9:30
Sun Nov 20: 8:45
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By the time The
Growth of the Soil was published in 1917, Norwegian
author Knut Hamsun was one of the most famous writers
in Europe, his works attracting large audiences throughout
the continent and beyond. Norwegian filmmaking at
this time was far less developed than those of neighboring
Denmark or Sweden, both of which had important silent
film industries; the opportunity to bring to the
screen a work by a national cultural icon would have
seemed like a good way to jump start Norway’s entrance
onto the world film stage. Making excellent, expressive
use of the rugged terrain, director Gunnar Sommerfeldt
skillfully captures the spirit of Hamsun’s ode to
self-reliance, as he details how his couple Isak
and Inger struggle to create a world of their own
only to see it threatened by the greed and petty
jealousy of others. The film was thought lost for
many years, having only been rediscovered and restored
in the 70s.
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Sun Nov 13: 1:30
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A late silent classic, Raid
on the Bergen Express combines the breathtaking
use of nature that was the hallmark of Scandinavian
silent cinema with a wry thriller plot. Beginning
with a remarkable sequence filmed at the National
Ski-Jumping Championships, the film tells the story
of an ambitious young man, Tom, who loves Grete,
daughter of the manager of the national railroads;
but Grete’s father prefers Lund, an upright and uptight
army officer. So to prove his worth, Tom organizes
a daring robbery of the nightly Bergen Express in
the hopes of outwitting his rival, who’s been assigned
to track down the thieves. There are several delightful
plot twists and reversals, and the on-screen chemistry
between Aud Richter’s Grete and Paul Richter’s
Tom lights up the snow-covered landscapes.
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Sun Nov 13: 4:00
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The wave of formal experimentation in cinema in the
late 50s/early 60s was represented in Norwegian cinema
by Erik Lochen’s intriguing first feature, The Hunt.
The film tells the story of three people — a married
couple and the husband’s best friend, who go off
together on a trip to the country. Along the way,
and once they arrive, we hear their thoughts, memories
and fears, moving between each characterís private
visions and the story world often without warning,
until personal and public space blur. Like another
1959 release, Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima
Mon Amour,
The Hunt shows how the past can be so alive
that it can overwhelm the present. The three central
performances by Rolf Soder, Benedikte Liseth and
Tor Stokke are outstanding, and help anchor Lochen’s
innovative approach to storytelling to a very emotional
drama.
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Sun Nov 13: 6:15
Wed Nov 23: 5:00
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Director Erik Poppe (Schpaa)
brings together the stories of Leon, a Polish-born
petty thief; Frode and Mille, a couple whose first
child has been born with a heart defect; Bobbie,
a singer down on her luck; and Trygve, Leon’s brother,
who decides to use his leave from prison to celebrate
Leon’s birthday. Hovering over all these stories
is the presence of Vidar, half guardian angel, half
interloper, the only one who seems to have a sense
of the plan that binds these stories together. “Poppe
brings a distinctive new flavor to Norwegian cinema.
He likes to tease his audience but he does so without
perplexing them. He builds up the image of a multi-racial
Oslo free of stereotypes, and he does so with some
wonderfully fluid camerawork… With this ‘chronicle
of a death foretold,’ Erik Poppe establishes himself
as the most imaginative filmmaker in Norway, and
what he does next should be of interest to all lovers
of Scandinavian cinema.”– Peter Cowie, Cool
and Crazy: Modern Norwegian Cinema, 1990-2005
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Sun Nov 13: 8:15 (intro by director Erik Poppe)
Tue Nov 15: 9:15
Thu
Nov 17: 3:30
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The major figure of Norway’s early
sound cinema, Tancred Ibsen — grandson of the playwright
Henrik — began his film career as the assistant of
Swedish director Victor Sjöström, with whom
he traveled to Hollywood in the mid-20s. Returning
home, he co-directed (with actor Einar Sissener)
Norway’s first talkie,
The Big Christening. Unable to find work,
Harald (co-director Sissner) babysits for his friend
Alvilde’s child when Alvilde heads off each day to
her factory job. The child’s father perished at sea,
and soon Harald is treating the child very much as
his own; having won over her child, Harald then sets
his sights on the mother. A huge critical and commercial
success, The Big Christening is reminiscent
of early Rene Clair both in its inventive use of
sound — the opening scene, showing the start of a
day at the factory, is practically a symphony of
industrial machine sounds — as
well as in its portrait of modest working-class lives.
The film’s title refers to one of the recurring subplots,
dealing with the reluctance of the church to baptize
the child of an unmarried woman.
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Mon Nov 14: 1:00
Mon Nov 14: 7:00
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The arrival of some kind of “free
spirit” — usually a dark, handsome stranger — that
upsets rigid local customs is a frequent theme in
Norwegian film; adapting Gabriel Scott’s novel, Tancred
Ibsen created one of this classic plot’s most moving
renditions. Josefa lives with her uncle while waiting
for her fiancé Oskar to return from the sea. Fearing
her uncle’s intentions, she runs away and seeks shelter
in the boat of Fendrik, a “sea gypsy” who wanders
the coast. But Fendrik soon develops his own lust
for her, as he attempts to draft her into his shady
lifestyle. Ibsen had clearly mastered all the conventions
of Hollywood-style melodrama, with stark delineations
of good and evil and progress towards a final resolution,
and yet while Fendrik clearly falls into the “evil”
column, there’s a sense that Josefa’s time
with him introduces her to a sensuality and freedom
that her eventual life with the upstanding Oskar
most probably won’t
provide.
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Mon Nov 14: 3:00
Mon Nov 14: 9:00
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Three friends have ended up in
a complicated love triangle: Jonny is trying to
be Magnus’s best friend; Magnus is trying to stay
married to Tuva; while Tuva would like her casual
affair with Jonny to continue. It’s a situation that
seems primed for some kind of explosion, and one
day it arrives in the form of someone hitting Jonny
over the head with a shovel. He recovers, but can’t
find out who was the culprit. Later, he’s pelted
with an air rifle; he goes to the authorities, but
they remind him that he’s the cause of his own problems.
A graduate of the London International Film School
and maker of several prize-winning shorts, debut
director Jens Lien here makes an amusing send-up
of rural life, showing that a lot more is going on
in some of those cabins than might be expected. His
characters reveal unexpected sides and ambitions,
and nothing here turns out like one imagines it should.
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Thu Nov 17: 1:30
Thu Nov 17: 9:00
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Norway has a rich tradition of
socially engaged cinema, in which a wide variety
of issues and problems would be treated with remarkable
candor. Leif Sinding’s The
Defenceless, another adaptation
of author Gabriel Scott, deals with the practice
of placing orphans and other needy children with
farm families. Whatever the original intentions of
the government, the reality was that too often the
so-called guardians of these children exploited them
horribly as a form of slave labor. Sinding’s film
focuses on Albert, the child of a prostitute who
quickly realizes that the only way he’ll survive
is to somehow escape. The complex and contradictory
relationships among the farmís inmates is expertly
detailed. Despite the powerful critical position
of The Defenceless, Leif Sinding during
the German occupation became the head of the Norwegian
film industry; even though most Norwegian films produced
during that time were harmless comedies and dramas,
his collaboration with the Quisling regime led to
Sinding’s later disgrace.
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Fri Nov 18: 1:30
Fri Nov 18: 7:00
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As in so many other nations, the
impact of WWII on every aspect of life and society
inspired whole cinematic movements, as the wartime
experience introduced a plethora of stories to tell
and an urgency to tell them. Soon after the war Norway
produced a number of important works that dealt with
the resistance to the German occupation, of which We
Leave for England is an outstanding example.
A group of people from various walks of life all
decide on their own to leave Norway and head across
the sea to England, from which they can join the
Allied forces. Some are already being watched by
the Germans; others decide almost spontaneously that
leaving is the right thing to do. Making their way
to a cramped fishing boat, they huddle down in its
hold, fearful that each new noise or unfamiliar voice
heard on deck means they’ve been betrayed. Completely
avoiding actions scenes or the re-creation of daring
exploits, We Leave for England instead is about personal
commitment and sacrifice; the decision to resist
is more important than the actual results of that
resistance. A very moving film that with its decidedly
unheroic posture feels extraordinarily true to life.
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Fri Nov 18: 3:00
Fri Nov 18: 8:45
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Made with French co-production
funds and supervised by French director Jean Dréville,
The Battle for Heavy Water is a dramatic
re-creation of one of the most important sabotage
missions of the war. Word filters out to the Allies
that the Nazi regime is pressing ahead with its plans
to build atomic weapons; one of their key facilities
in this effort is at the Norsk Hydro plant at Vemork,
where they are attempting to create “heavy water,”
a vital stage on the road to enriching uranium. After
a British raid fails, the Norwegian resistance is
asked to undertake the mission — even more dangerous
now that the Nazis realize that the true nature of
their facility has been discovered. Some of the actors
in the film were among those who actually participated
in the actual raid. The story was later brought to
the screen in a Hollywood version by Anthony Mann
in The Heroes of Telemark.
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Fri Nov 18: 5:00
Sat Nov 19: 5:10
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Unquestionably one Norway’s greatest
filmmakers, Arne Skouen started out as a novelist
and journalist. One day he was invited to the offices
of Norsk Film, a principal Norwegian film company
before the war that had fallen on hard times. As
Skouen entered the office of its general manager,
Kristoffer Aamot, he noticed a copy of his novel,
Street Urchins, on the man’s desk; within
a few minutes, Aamot not only asked for the film
rights for the novel; he also asked Skouen to direct
it. Beyond having spent a little time in Hollywood
a few years before, Skouen had no film experience,
but with the help of photographer Ulf Greber, he
dedicated himself to bringing Street
Urchins to the
screen. The result was both a Norwegian film classic
as well as the launch of an important career. Set
in the 20s, the film follows a gang of boys from
working-class families who are coming to realize
how few prospects the future holds for them. Although
in school, they spend more time looking for jobs
to help their families when not engaging in petty
crime or acts of violence. A stark contrast to a
film like The Big Christening, which offers
a far more sentimental vision of working-class life, Street
Urchins continuously sets the boys’ actions
and antics against the realities of strikes, labor
lockouts and growing protests that define their parents’
lives and livelihoods. The film has been compared
to Italian Neorealist films of the period, but Skouen
himself cited the influence on him of the French
“poetic realism” of Marcel Carné and
Julien Duvivier.
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Sat Nov 19: 1:30
Sun Nov 20: 5:00
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After the bold experimentation
of Erik Lochen’s The Hunt (1959),
Norwegian cinema largely slipped back into the vein
of popular comedies and melodramas that had given
the industry such a boost in the 1950s. It was with Liv,
directed by Pål Lokkeberg and co-written by and starring
his then-wife Vibeke Lokkeberg, that the cinema of
the 60s came rushing into Norway. Strongly influenced
by the French New Wave, Liv chronicles the
life of a top model over the course of one day. Like
other New Wave-influenced works, Liv treads
a thin line between documentary and fiction, with
Lokkeberg’s vibrant, hand-held camera capturing chance
encounters and other digressions alongside its focus
on Liv’s
workday. Beyond its powerful influences on an emerging
generation of filmmakers, Liv is also a fascinating
record of a staid and basically conservative Norway
suddenly confronting the swinging 60s.
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Sat Nov 19: 3:15
Wed Nov 23: 1:30
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After the international success
of his Insomnia (1997, remade by Christopher
Nolan in 2002), Erik Skjoldbjœrg received numerous
offers to work abroad; he chose to film the screen
adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac
Nation,
starring Christina Ricci. Returning to Norway he
set about adapting and updating Henrik Ibsen’s An
Enemy of the People. TV celebrity Tomas Stockman
decides to move back to his native village, where
he has a plan to produce the world’s purest
bottled water together with his brother Peter. The
new company gives a tremendous economic boost to
the community, which had been struggling to imagine
a future for itself; then laboratory reports begin
to arrive showing that the water has significant
traces of an illegal pesticide. So much of the product’s
appeal was based on its claims of absolute purity
that even a rumor that the water doesn’t live
up to the claims made for it would destroy it. Nevertheless,
Tomas feels that the truth must emerge — while
Peter, who unlike his brother has never lived away
from the village, knows only too well what the consequences
would be.
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Sat Nov 19: 9:00
Mon Nov 21: 1:00
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In the 50s, Norwegian anthropologist
Thor Heyerdahl had almost mythic status as a man
who proposed an audacious theory and then, after
being scorned by the establishment, set about to
“prove” it in awe-inspiring fashion — the
scientist as tanned, well-muscled adventurer, Indiana
Jones avant la lettre. The theory in question was
whether or not the great South American civilizations
had influenced the civilizations of Polynesia; when
the naysayers maintained that the South American
balsa-wood boats couldnít have made such long voyages,
Heyerdahl and a group of collaborators built their
own balsa-wood craft, the Kon-Tiki, and headed west.
Olle Nordemar’s
film, assembled from footage shot by Heyerdahl and
his raftmates, while technically primitive due to
the extreme harshness of the conditions of filming,
does manage to plunge the audience into the experience,
giving it an authenticity that more than makes up
for its lack of polish. Kon-Tiki went on
to win the Oscar for best documentary and was an
enormous international hit as well; Heyerdahl’s book Kon-Tiki has
been translated into 67 languages.
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Sun Nov 20: 1:30
Sun Nov 27: 2:45
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During our 1999 Norwegian film
series, we were honored to welcome to the Walter
Reade Theater the wonderful Edith Carlmar, who presented
her remarkable film Death
Is a Caress. Norwegian cinema’s first woman
director, Ms. Carlmar was then a spry 88 who charmed
everyone who met her. Sadly, Ms. Carlmar has passed
away since her visit to us, but we’re pleased to
celebrate her great contribution to Norwegian cinema
with two films in our current programn — A
Young Woman Is Missing and The
Wayward Girl. When archeologist
Arne Berger returns from a trip, his wife Eva has
seemingly disappeared. A police investigation begins,
and slowly he learns the truth about his wife. Eva
had been a drug addict, introduced into her condition
while working at a pharmacy. Her marriage to Berger
represented her attempt to break her downward spiral,
but the pressures of the relationship — unnoticed
by Berger — eventually force her to seek out the
contacts from her former life.
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Sun Nov 20: 3:00
Mon Nov 21: 2:50
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![](../images/were-getting-married.jpg")
“The first commercially
successful Norwegian film comedy after the war was
We Are Getting Married, by Nils R. Müller.
This film became one of the greatest box-office hits
ever in Norwegian cinema, and was followed by many
films that were variations of the same story. Müller’s
film tells of a young, urban couple and their housing
problems. They want to establish a home of their
own and get married, but they cannot do so without
having somewhere to live. Frustrated by the situation,
the couple is forced to move from the city to a farm
in the countryside. This is a place of hard work
and female intrigues, and their marriage seems on
the verge of collapse until one day the husband wins
a popular song contest… We
Are Getting Married takes
a social problem — the lack of housing — as
a way to paint an idyllic portrait of a romantic
couple and their marriage. This blend of social and
political issues and romantic comedy characterizes
feature film production in Norway in the 1950s…
The comedies reflect both a new optimism and in dealing
with the emerging “new” society — where
the nuclear family was at the center, and the housewife
was given a special role — reflect the changing
ways of life and sex-roles.”– Gunnar
Iverson, “Norway,”
in Nordic National Cinemas
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Mon Nov 21: 9:15
Tue Nov 22: 3:30
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An enormous commercial and critical
success in Norway as well as throughout Scandinavia,
Wives is a delightful, ironic look at how
a new generation of women was beginning to rebel
against social conventions and gender expectations.
Clearly inspired by John Cassavetes’ Husbands,
Wives begins as three old friends meet at
a school reunion. After trading the current details
of their lives, the women come to realize how much
they are dominated by their respective husbands’
needs and demands. Aching for a taste of freedom,
the three decide to go off on a brief holiday spree
together, away from jobs and families. Breien gives
the film a wonderfully loose, spontaneous feel, aided
immeasurably by her three actresses, who in fact
improvised much of their dialogue. One of Norway’s
top directors, Anja Breien went on to film two sequels
to Wives,
in 1985 and 1995, updating the stories of these women
with the same actresses.
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Wed Nov 23: 3:15
Wed Nov 23: 9:15
Sun Nov 27: 1:00
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The 70s and 80s saw the entrance
of a considerable number of women directors into
the Norwegian cinema. One of the most promising was
Vibeke Lokkeberg, who had made such a strong impression
as the title character in Liv. Set in Bergen
at the end of the war, The
Betrayal tells the story of a young girl, Kamilla,
and her family. A former factory owner now running
a shoe shop and dreaming of moving to America, Kamilla’s
father is rumored to have collaborated with the Germans;
Kamilla’s mother (played by Lokkeberg) drifts further
and further away from him, growing increasingly angry
while feeling increasingly helpless to do anything
about the dissolution of her marriage. All these
adult tensions are witnessed by Kamilla, who retreats
into her own world with her cousin Svein. Lokkeberg
beautifully creates the sense of a community twisted
by feelings of guilt, suspicion and revenge, revealing
aspects of the plot through quick snatches of dialogue
or sudden looks or gestures. Screened at the 1983
ND/NF series, The Betrayal became the first
Norwegian film to be commercially distributed in
the U.S. since Arne Skouen’s Nine
Lives.
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Wed Nov 23: 7:00
Fri Nov 25: 4:45
Sun Nov 27: 6:30
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As Norway began to reap the profits
of its oil industry, a few filmmakers began to devise
projects that were of far greater technical and commercial
ambition than had been seen before. A great international
success, and at the time the most expensive Norwegian
film ever made, Orion’s Belt is a
taut Cold War-era thriller that never lets the tension
flag. Three sailors seeking shelter in a remote part
of Norway’s frozen northern coast discover a secret
Soviet listening post. Soon the Soviets realize that
their secret is out, and the chase to stop the leak
is on. But the Norwegian government and its NATO
allies have their own reasons for wanting to keep
the incident a secret. There are a few crisp action
sequences, but most of the real tension in the film
is psychological, as the protagonists realize theyíre
caught in a secret world of high-level espionage
whose shape and purpose they can hardly make out.
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Fri Nov 25: 1:00
Fri Nov 25: 7:00
Tue Nov 29: 4:00
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“In Per Blom’s The
Ice Palace, two prepubescent girls respond to
an unspoken, mutual attraction. Unn, the more fey
of the pair, vanishes into the heart of an ‘ice palace,’
where the tumbling waters of the mountainside have
congealed into a cathedral-like shrine. Bliom suggests
with discreet sounds and images the secret symbiosis
between the two girls… The
Ice Palace eschews dramatic
incident, evoking instead the mesmeric beauty of
the falls and mountains in winter, and lacquering
the visuals with an ethereal score that lulls and
hypnotizes the spectator into complicity with a story
that shifts constantly between hallucination and
reality. This belongs among the most audacious films
in modern Norwegian cinema, with a controlled aesthetic
and a delight in exploiting the unique winter landscape
of the Nordic region, with its overtones of superstition,
solitude and melancholy.” – Peter Cowie, Straight
from the Heart: Modern Norwegian Cinema, 1971-1999
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Fri Nov 25: 3:00
Fri Nov 25: 9:00
Tue Nov 29: 6:15
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Nominated for Best Foreign Film
Oscar, 1988. “It's no joke. One of the best movies
this summer is an action flick that comes from Lapland.
The ancient tale begins after a man tells us (in
Lapp, with subtitles) not to disregard the third
sighting of a reindeer bull. While fur boots tramp
through snow, a dog pricks its ears up as a child's
voice calls. An arrow flies with cruel speed, and
the pet becomes a carcass falling heavily to the
ground. Back at the family camp, the child is told
not to wander too far to look for her dog; her older
brother, out hunting, can help when he returns. But
just a few steps past the tent, she too encounters
a group of dark-dressed men, and an arrow flies again.
By the time brother Aigin (Mikkel Gaup) returns,
his family's corpses are being dropped one by one
into a hole cut through the ice. As he watches in
horror, a telltale ski slips from his foot and slides
into the group of intruders, and the chase is on.
Meanwhile, in another Lapp village, hunters prepare
to slay a bear that possesses almost mystical powers…
The combination of frosty, heart-pounding realism
and brief flashes of ethnic spiritualism is part
of Pathfinder’s Nordic charm. Basically,
it's Die
Hard with a heart, except the suspense and bursts
of violence are all the scarier since you know there's
no way a barefoot Bruce Willis is going to appear
to save the day. And instead of cheering when the
tundra terrorists bite the dust — or rather, snow
— you’ll breathe a sigh of somber relief, just like
the Lapps.” – Jeanne
Cooper, The Washington Post
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Mon Nov 28: 4:20
Mon Nov 28: 9:35
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“If Petter Nœss has become
recognized far beyond his own country for Elling,
he deserves even higher praise for Just
Bea. Its
relaxed yet humorous treatment of teenage sexual
awareness lies somewhere between Thereís Something
About Mary and Show Me
Love. Bea is 16 and attends
upper secondary school in Oslo. She dreams of becoming
a writer, and despite her parents’ skepticism,
applies for a writing scholarship in Canada. Her
three closest friends have all had sex, and Bea’s
abiding virginity both irritates and tantalizes them.
Bea, however, is no prude, and collision between
the clumsiness of teenage petting and the romantic
dreams of someone like Bea provide scene after scene
of tender wit. Kaia Foss has an expressive charm
that marks her as an actress for the future… Just
Bea respects
its teenage characters, where so many similar films
treat them with condescension. And for once even
the parents are sympathetic in their most perplexed
moments.” – Peter Cowie, Cool and
Crazy: Modern Norwegian Cinema, 1990-2005
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Mon Nov 28: 1:00
Mon Nov 28: 6:10
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“Writing, directing and
starring in your own first feature is no doubt a
daunting task, but Aksel Hennie — one of Norway’s
leading young actors — pulls it off with aplomb.
Uno has a gritty authenticity to it and
everything in the film looks lived-in or picked-over…
David (Hennie) is the peacemaker at the grungy Oslon
gym where he works. He’s the one who invariably rescues
the boss’s dim-witted son when he screws up drug
deals or when his temper gets the best of him. In
fact, his boss sees David as the son he’d rather
have. At home, itís another matter. David’s own father
is dying; he’s never been able too deal with his
mentally challenged younger brother; and his relationship
with his mother has always been problematic… Hennie
never hits a false note as David, a kid who’s about
to discover that human beings are a lot more complex
than he realized, and he’s supported by a cast of
performers who embody their roles effortlessly.”
– Steve Gravestock, 2004 Toronto International Film
Festival Catalogue.
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Sun Nov 27: 4:30
Sun Nov 27: 8:40
Tue Nov 29: 2:00
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A remarkably assured first film,
Annette Sjursen’s My Jealous
Barber is a sly comedy
that takes on progressively darker overtones as its
tale develops. For years, Bent has been a regular
at Frank’s barber shop; a calm, even-tempered man,
Bent likes the slightly ritualistic air of visits
to Frank’s, which give his life some much-needed
structure, especially after the death of his father.
One day Bent meets Susie, a new aroma-therapist whoís
just moved to town; as Bent and Susie’s friendship
starts to transform into something more serious,
suddenly Frank begins to make his presence felt in
their relationship, insinuating himself into some
of the most unexpected situations. Sjursen is fortunate
to have a wonderful trio of actors for her lead,
but it is Bjorn Sundquist who especially shines here
as a barber whose intimacy with his customers extends
to his keeping every lock of hair he’s ever shorn
from them.
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Mon Nov 28: 2:45
Mon Nov 28: 8:00 |
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