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The Worst Person in the World – Elusive happiness

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“I’m standing on the sideline of my own life.”

Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World is Norway’s submission for Best International Feature and has been shortlisted for Oscar consideration. Renate Reinsva was honored at Cannes as Best Actress. Trier, in comments before the Sundance screening, called this a Scandinavian take on romantic comedy, noting that this is the land of Ingmar Bergman. It certainly has the elements of romcom, but it also has existential darkness.

The film follows Julie (Reinsva) over a four year period arranged in 12 chapters (plus prologue and epilogue). In the prologue we hear her wonder when her life was supposed to start. Each section of the film shows us a bit more of her search for what her life should be. We see her fall in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), who is ten years her senior. She moves in with him and all is well, until she meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), who is married. Their relationship begins with a sensual, flirtatious game of defining what constitutes cheating (a game that by its nature is cheating).

In a key chapter, as Julie marks her 30th birthday, she considers what her mother was doing when she was thirty—and her mother—and her mother…. While the role of women has changed over all those years, we can’t help but notice that Julie really has nothing permanent in her life. She may seem free, but without really committing to a man or career or much of anything, she continues to be rudderless.

While the romcom vibe is very real, this is much more a thirties coming-of-age tale. Julie is so engaging and vibrant (because of Reinsva’s performance) we like her and want her to find happiness and fulfilment. Yet we watch helplessly as she goes from one relationship to the next without finding anything that brings real happiness or meaning to her. It’s not so much that she can’t find what she wants; it’s more a case that she may not even know what she wants in life, work, or relationships.

It is also an exploration of the interplay between freedom and commitment. Julie constantly acts to be free from the restraints of commitment, yet she seems to long to have more to her life than she can have on her own. For all the sybaritic joy that fills her life, there is a sense that she is lost in a world that values connections with others.

The Worst Person in the World returns to theaters February 4.

Betrayed – The guilt of doing nothing

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In some ways Betrayed, from director Erik Svensson is like many other films about the Holocaust. It tells the story of the deportation of Jews from Norway in 1942. (Actually, we start three years earlier, in more normal times.) But this film doesn’t quite follow the pattern of other Holocaust films, which gives it a very different feeling.

The film focuses on the Braude family, especially Charles Braude, a boxer who lives with his parents, sister and two brothers. Charles is in love with, and eventually marries a Gentile, and they begin their life together. But the German occupation soon brings disruptions. Soon the men are all sent to a workcamp, where they face abuse at the hands of Norwegian Nazi sympathizers.

Meanwhile authorities are cataloguing the belonging of Jewish households. When the time comes, state police sweep through the town arresting all the Jewish women and children to be taken to the port to be shipped off. We learn at the end of the film that the Germans deported or imprisoned over 700 Jews from Norway. Only twenty-eight survived. When we thing of the Holocaust, we often think of the millions, but that may make us miss the more human side of a small community completely destroyed.

Where this film veers away from most Holocaust films is that we are used to such films being about heroics. Either the oppressed fighting back, or the heroics of neighbors who saved Jews from the sure death. It is precisely the lack of such heroics that gives Betrayed its power. Instead we see the people around them acquiesce—and even cheerfully so—to the orders that come down. We know that the German occupying power is behind all this, but it is Norwegians who are actually doing the terrible things.

The film tells us that in 2012 the government of Norway issued an apology. That apology stated that although the Germans did the killing, it was the Norwegian people who arrested and drove people to the docks. That was an acknowledgement that as a nation, they participated in the evil of the Holocaust. Does the power of the German occupiers mitigate that guilt? To some extent, but certainly not entirely.

Films that show heroes in the midst of the Holocaust may serve as examples for us to imitate in the facing of evil (and there are surely evils that we need to face in our own society).  But this film that shows the failure to act heroically is just as powerful by holding up a mirror to the may times we have failed to act—to allow the evil around us to flourish by our inaction, and sometimes even by our active participation because we’re just going along with the power.

Betrayed is in select theaters and available of VOD.

Photos courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Hope – The Possibility of Light in the Darkness

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“You don’t have to love me just because I’m dying. But I need to know that you’ll help me.”

A diagnosis of terminal cancer inevitably brings upheaval and stress into any family. Hope, Norway’s official Oscar Submission for Best International Feature Film (it made the shortlist, but wasn’t nominated), is an intimate and intense look at the dynamics within a family, and especially between spouses in such a troubling time.

Anja (Andrea Bræin Hovig) and Tomas (Stellan Skarsgård) have been together for many years. They have three children together as well as three from Tomas’s first marriage. They have built very separate lives through the years, but have managed to stay together (although not married). A few days before Christmas, Anja learns that she has a brain tumor, likely a metastasis from her earlier lung cancer. Such tumors are invariably fatal.

The film follows Anja and her family through a very difficult eleven day period. They try to keep the diagnosis secret through the holiday, but with Anja’s reaction to the steroids she’s been put on, it becomes necessary to reveal the truth. She is struggling with thoughts of mortality, but also with concern for her children, especially her teenage daughter. Tomas and Anja also must deal with questions within their relationship and how their lives have evolved over the years. All the while they must deal with holidays with friends and with various medical appointments to determine any steps to be taken if there is to be any hope of survival.

At the very beginning of the film is a note that says. “This is my story as I remember it.” The film is based on director Maria Sødahl’s experience of getting such a diagnosis. (Obviously, she recovered.) That is what makes the film such an intimate portrayal of a very trying time in her life. As Anja struggles through such tumultuous times, trying to deal with holidays, family, drugs side effects, and the frustrations of even a good medical system, we can see something of the reality Sødahl lived.

The setting of the Christmas/New Year holidays is interesting because those are days we associate with hope—whether it involves Christmas presents or the dawning of a new year. But for Anja and Tomas, much of what they are seeing is hopelessness. Doctor after doctor tells them there is no hope—only short-term remedies.

That makes the film’s title stand out. This is a film in which hope, while it seems so elusive, is central to the characters’ lives. Hope, as it plays out in the film, is not just about a possible medical outcome. It applies to the future of Tomas’s and Anja’s children. But the real focus of hope that we see here is on healing the rift in the relationship between Tomas and Anja that has grown through years of distraction and routine. If they have only a little time left together, will it be a time of love or only struggle?

The film leaves all its questions unresolved, and in so doing it challenges us to consider our own level of hope.

Hope is available in theaters and through virtual cinema.

Photos courtesy of KimStim Films.

Amundson: The Greatest Expedition

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Roald Amundsen is probably best known as the polar explorer who beat Robert Scott to the South Pole. Amundsen, a new biopic from Epsen Sandberg, shows us some of his noteworthy expeditions, but also more about Amundsen as a person—and that isn’t always flattering.

Roald Amundsen (Pål Sverre Hagen) has his sights set, at the beginning of the film, with reaching the North Pole and discovering what might be there. But when Americans claim to have reached the pole (something that history disputes) he shifts his attention to the South Pole, knowing that Scott is already putting together an expedition. He never mentions the change in plans to investors or to the English. That kind of dishonest self-interest becomes the real focus of the story, more than the exploits themselves.

The story is structured around a conversation between Roald’s estranged brother Leon (Christian Rubeck) and his finacee Bess Magids (Kathering Waterston) at a time that Roald is lost and possibly dead on one of his attempts to fly to the North Pole. Leon was the pragmatic and businesslike side of the brotherly partnership. Bess, a Canadian, was married when she and Roald first got together.

Leon relates the story of Roald’s obsession with the poles and many of the ways that Roald was reckless and uncaring about anything other than his success. For example, we see that Amundsen’s mindset for the trip to the South Pole was that of a suicide mission. He didn’t really care if they all got back, so long as he got there first. (The irony is that Scott’s expedition did perish on their attempt.)

As the film moves between that conversation and the various expeditions Roald undertook, we get a picture of someone who had great ambition, but perhaps was not as worthy of adulation as we might expect. When Leon tells him that the finances are no longer available and that things must change, Roald will have nothing to do with him thereafter. When Roald writes his autobiography, it is filled with bitterness.

I think we know that most of those considered heroes have flaws. That is very apparent with Roald Amundsen. We see both sides of him in the film. It illustrates the difference between doing great things and being a great person. But it never gives us a chance to find his redeeming (or redeemed) nature. The film’s subtitle is “The Greatest Expedition”. Perhaps his success in going places no other person had ever been is not the real story. It could be that he failed at ‘the greatest expedition”—life.

Amundsen is available on virtual cinema through local theaters and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Slamdance Film Festival – Day 2

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Slamdance is designed to focus on new and emerging filmmakers. Over the last 25 years it has produced an impressive alumni list, including (with some of their more well known films): Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, Batman Begins, Memento), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamiite), Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), Anthony and Joe Russo (Avengers: Infinity Wars), Bong Joon-Ho (Okja), Sean Baker (The Florida Project), Mark Forster (Christpher Robin, World War Z) and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild). Will some of this years filmmakers be making the critical and popular films in the future?

Impetus, from director Jennifer Alleyn, is a blending and blurring of narrative and documentary. By bringing the lives of her actors and herself into the film she is making, she poses the question of what makes us move on in life when we face changes? When a lover leaves? Or when an actor leaves in the middle of filming? Or any of the other difficult things that come up in life? Why do some people keep going almost automatically while others wallow and let the world pass them by? At times the film does both of those things: it wallows and it keeps going. It eventually gets to a cab ride in Manhattan with a driver who is philosophical enough to bring us hope of finding new life.

Friendship, youthful rebellion, and discovering one’s strengths are the focus of Beats from Scottish director Brian Welsh. It tells of teen best friends Johnno and Spanner at a time when they are about to go their separate ways. Johnno’s family (his new step-father is a police officer) is about to move to a new town and new life. Spanner lives with his abusive and probably criminal older brother. But with the government outlawing raves, Spanner sets off with Johnno and other friends to an underground party filled with anarchy, drugs, and music. Meanwhile his family (especially his step-father) expects conformity. Johnno is a bit uncomfortable with it all and their friendship nearly comes undone, but eventually it is formative experience that allows Johnno to begin to find his own freedom and identity. The soundtrack for this film adds a great deal of energy. The knowledge that this friendship is about to end makes it a bit bittersweet at the end, especially with title cards that update the various characters.

Is individualism the same as freedom? The Belarus film Crystal Swan by director Darya Zhuk is the story of a search for freedom in a setting that doesn’t reward individualism. Velya is a young woman who wants to travel to the US to become a DJ. But to get a visa she has to show she has a job to return to (and so not overstay the visa). She buys some letterhead to forge a letter and puts down a fake phone number. But when she realizes that the embassy will check on her story, she must go locate the phone and get the cooperation of the people who have that phone. She ends up spending several days in a small industrial town among a family that is too busy planning a wedding to deal with her. Bit by bit she works to gain their help, but she also is in a very precarious situation—one that can bring everything down on her. Set in the mid-1990, when Belarus was still developing its own identity, there are frequent references to the changes going on—including yearning for the old Soviet Union and the certainties it provided. Many think her wrong for wanting to leave her motherland. Vleya’s dreams are beaten back over and over, sometimes with violence. Crystal Swan was Belarus’s official submission for Oscar consideration.

Hurry Slowly from Norwegian filmmaker Anders Emblem is a leisurely paced (delightfully so) look at the burdens of life and how we approach them. Fiona lives on an island off the coast of Norway, where she must balance her time caring for her intellectually handicapped brother Tom, her job on a ferry, and an interest in music. Tom alternates weeks between living with Fiona and in a care home. Tom is fascinated with space (their Grandfather was an astronomer). He spends his time in his room listening to tapes (in English) about space and space travel that are well beyond his intellectual capability. It adds a meaningful dimension to a song Fiona sings one evening about a satellite, because Tom often seems to be a satellite that is constantly orbiting Fiona’s life (or is it the other way around?)  For Fiona this is a very lonely life, filled with routine and frustration. As Tom is about to turn 18, he may be able to move into the care home full time. Is this what would be best for Tom? For Fiona? Can she come to grips with the freedom it will give her, and what of the guilt that comes with that freedom?

Part buddy comedy, part crime thriller, part story of lost love, Lost Holiday never quite gets the proportions right to make any of the part fully work. When 30-something Maggie returns to DC for the holidays to visit friends, she first meets her old boyfriend’s fiancée, who seems far more sophisticated and competent than Maggie. Her old boyfriend seems interested in becoming connected again, but Maggie can’t bring herself to do it. After she and two other friends head off to find drugs, they find themselves in the midst of a case of a missing scion of a rich family. Maggie is determined that they need to solve this. Eventually Maggie and one of her friends are headed back to New York, but she is still as empty as when she started. The comedy never really hits the mark. The mystery never provides any sustained suspense, and the possible love story never really develops one way or the other.

Coming of age stories are common, but Spiral Farm has a different approach to that theme. Teenaged Anahita has spent much of her life on a communal farm. She knows it as a place of nurture and comfort. But she also feels stifled and trapped here. When one of her mother’s old boyfriends visits with his son Theo, she is both attracted to and annoyed by the boy. She goes into the city for a dance audition, and she and Theo spend a night in the city. Anahita has always been “bashful” about sex, even in the free love ethic of the commune. But as she becomes more attracted to Theo, he seems less interested. But she also sees this as a chance to leave the farm and experience life in the city. Is she up to it? And what about her family she is leaving behind? The film does not portray the communal life in a bad light, but it does make it clear that Anahita feels that she needs to experience the world in a new way. It is a hard choice she faces.

What Will People Say – Culture Clash

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What Will People Say was one of my favorite films at AFIFest this year. I wasn’t alone in my estimation of the work; it also won the Audience Award in the New Auteurs section. It is a powerful and engaging film in which two different value systems collide within the life of a teenager as she grows up with connection to two cultures.

Sixteen year old Nisha (Maria Mozhdah) is the dutiful daughter of Pakistani immigrants to Norway. Her family observes the ways of her homeland, and participates in the broader Pakistani community. But having grown up in the European culture, she is also a very normal Norwegian teenager. Her friends are Norwegian. She sneaks in and out of her bedroom window at night. One night her father discovers her boyfriend in her bedroom. He beats the boy. Police are called, and Nisha is taken into a shelter while she and her family try to deal with the situation.

Her father and brother then kidnap her and take her to Pakistan to live with family there and better learn the traditional values. She struggles to fit into this culture that she really doesn’t understand. She begins to adapt, but soon her teenage behavior causes shame to her Pakistani family which forces them to call her father to come get her. She is caught in the midst of trying to fit into cultural ideals that she really doesn’t understand or accept. But this is her family. These are people who love her and have raised her. But how can they tolerate behavior that goes against all they have ever known? And how can she adapt to such a world when she has been raised in a western ethos?

I’m sure it makes a difference that I’m watching this with western eyes. (And that it is made with a western perspective.) But even though the Pakistani ethos may seem harsh from our perspective, it is treated with the respect that it deserves. When Nisha’s parents worry about how others will think of them as a result of Nisha’s actions, it is because honor is so important in their culture. Even after years of living in Norway, her mother is embarrassed when her husband makes her dance with him with friends present in their home. Such mores are hard to escape. And in fact, because of what Nisha has done, the family is being ostracized by other Pakistanis. And even though they are hurt and angry, Nisha’s parents continue to strive to do what they feel is best for Nisha and her future. The connection between Nisha and her father is front and center in showing the loving, yet often hostile relationship.

The conflict arises when the western value of individual freedom (especially as it plays out in adolescence) is added to the mix. Nisha has been raised within this culture as well as her family’s culture. This is her natural environment. And in reality, part of the reason for her parents coming to Europe was for such freedom and the opportunity it provides for their children. It is not only Nisha who is conflicted over these values. Her father also has this struggle. But the gap between her first generation father and 1.5 generation Nisha gives each a different perspective.

The real question posed by the film is if these two different value structures—each valid within their cultures—can coexist. Is it possible for Nisha to live the life her parents want for her and the life that she has been told can be hers from the European culture? And if she must choose, what will the cost be? This is an issued faced by many immigrants from various cultures as then adapt to new homelands. It can also be a concern for families in any culture when there are changing value systems—and let’s face it, the world and its values are constantly shifting. Parents of each generation struggle to teach children the values they were raised with that may now seem passé.

It is hard to imagine an ending that is satisfactory for all involved, and the film doesn’t find one. Rather it sets in motion even more questions of how these lives will play out in a changing world. Perhaps freedom is not an ultimate good, any more than honor is. Yet both are worthy values to cultivate in people and in society.

 

Thelma – Spooky Self-Discovery

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Strange things happen in Thelma, the horror thriller from director Joachim Trier. Thelma (Eili Harboe), who has been raised by very protective, devoutly Christian parents, goes off to university. Her parents are fearful of what might happen. All seems to be going well until one day when studying in the library, a bird crashes into a window, which somehow triggers a seizure in Thelma. After she recovers she begins a relationship with another woman student. But the seizures continue, seemingly without cause. The seizures occur around times when something strange takes place. As Thelma seeks to understand what is happening, her family’s past hold revelations about her giftedness.

While I’m not a fan of supernatural events in horror films, this film does an excellent job of building tension. This is a spooky story as it plays out. Little by little we see connections between what Thelma is going through, tragic events in her history, and the role Thelma plays in it all. While there is a supernatural foundation, the film is really about Thelma’s journey to self-discovery.

As I noted above, Thelma comes out of a devout Christian background. This is not an oppressive family. (Although it does seem to treat religion as somewhat exotic.) Thelma’s faith adds a bit of depth to the struggles she experiences. In fact, at one point her father suggests that the similar troubles she had in early childhood went away when she accepted Christ. But when the seizures and resulting events begin again, where is Thelma to turn? She prays, but it seems to make no difference.

In time it all comes down to what control Thelma has over her life. Can she take control, or do her seizures control her? How have the things in her past brought her to this point? How will she use the control she discovers for herself or for others?

 

Thelma is Norway’s official Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submission.

Saturday at AFI Fest 2017

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The first full day for the festival took me on a trip around the world. That’s one of the values of film festivals, we get to see other lands and cultures without the expense and time of travel. (Not that I wouldn’t love being able to go to so many places.) We also get to see through different eyes. Four of the films for today were from women directors. Some have lived in more than one culture and so can compare and contrast. To see such films encourages us to see our own world and culture as others might.

From Spain comes Summer 1993 (New Auteurs section). Director Carla Simón tells a story based on her own childhood. After her mother’s AIDS-related death, young Frida moves into the Catalan countryside to live with her uncle and his family. She is surrounded by loving family members, but she has not yet come to grips with the enormity of the change in her life and discovered how to deal with the grief she holds inside. The beautiful, sunny countryside creates a contrast for the pain that Frida has. Summer 1993 is Spain’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Joachim Trier’s Thelma (World Cinema) is a nicely creepy film coming out of Norway. Thelma has grown up in a religious family, but has now set off to university, where she finds new ideas and experiences life in new ways. She is strangely attracted to another student, Anja. But when she starts having unexplained seizures strange things begin to happen. There are secrets from her past that come to bear on her life and a chance for her to find happiness. Thelma is Norway’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film. It is slated to open in theaters on November 24.

Wajib (World Cinema) is a father/son story from director Annemarie Jacir. Shadi, an architect living in Rome, returns to Israel, to help his father Abu Shad hand-deliver wedding invitation for Shadi’s sister’s wedding. As the two men drive around Nazareth and visit friends and relatives, their differences create tensions. For Shadi, a Palestinian living an affluent life abroad, there is a culture clash in returning. The relationship between the two is very complex, at once loving and fractious. Has Shadi abandoned his family and people (as his mother did many years ago)? Has Abu Shadi compromised his principles to advance his career? As a father and a son, I found this a very universal reality of the difficulty in understanding a generational difference, yet being bonded by a lifetime of love. Wajib is the official Palestinian entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

In Iram Haq’s What Will People Say? (New Auteurs) a 1.5 generation Pakistani immigrant lives a dual life: the perfect Pakistani daughter at home, but a normal Norwegian teenager among her friends. But when Misha’s father discovers her with her boyfriend in her room late one night, everything changes. The story is a clash of important values. For the West, where Nisha has grown up, freedom is perhaps the highest value. But for her family, both in their new country and back in Pakistan, honor is paramount. It may seem that her parents are only concerned with how they are perceived, but at the same time it seems they are acting out of love for their daughter, trying to provide her with a life that fits their worldview. Of course, I watched this through western eyes, so some of the responses by her family seem extreme, but at the same time I could empathize with their desire to raise their daughter in what they considered a proper life. Mark this down as one of my favorites of the festival.

I traveled to South Africa with Jenna Bass’s High Fantasy (New Auteurs). Four friends (three women, one white, one colored, two black) go to an isolated farm for a camping trip. But when they wake up in the morning, they have somehow swapped bodies. This is more than Freaky Friday. As they struggle to understand what happened, they must also struggle with the difficulty of what it means to live in a “rainbow nation”. The racial and sexual differences are not something that can be covered up by just “walking a mile in another’s shoes”. The resentments of generations of apartheid and oppression are too deep. South Africa continues to be a country that struggles with racism—as does the U.S. This film is not about finding easy answers for how we live together in racist societies, but rather it raises some questions that need to be addressed if we are ever going to find ways to move forward.