PSIFF 2013: KON-TIKI

A scene from Kon-Tiki.

No our way

ByMiranda Inganni

On the Academy’s short list for Best Film in a Foreign Language, Norway’s Kon-Tiki takes viewers back to 1947 when Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (Pal Sverre Hagen) and five other men travelled 4300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean on a balsawood raft.

A visionary who insisted Polynesia was first found by indigenous people from South America (namely, Peruvians) Heyerdahl could not convince anyone that the much-held notion that Asians from the East founded and populated the area was incorrect. If he wanted scientists, journalists and the world to take him seriously, he would have to make the journey they made some 1500 years ago using the same materials. Proving to the world that his theory was correct was worth risking everything to Heyerdahl and so they set sail from Peru.

Once on their way, the six men have to face the reality of their journey and the real possibility that they might not survive, or end up nowhere near their destination. Between fights, fending off sharks and men falling overboard, Heyerdahl documents the trip (the resulting documentary film won the Academy Award in 1950).

While there are a few overly dramatic moments and a few unnecessary CGI shots, co-directors Espen Sandberg and Joachim Ronning’s Kon-Tikiis an extravagant, energetic and entertaining film depicting an epic historical journey.

 

TRIBECA 2012: JACKPOT

A scene from Jackpot.

Murder after numbers

By John Esther

In the opening scene of Jackpot (Arme Riddere), a trio of drunken idiots walks right into the door of a strip joint near the Norway-Sweden border, only to be blown out the window by gunfire. Mayhem and murder ensues with only one survivor, Oscar (Kyrre Hellum), to bare true/false testimony.

Primarily using an interrogation scene to drive director Magnus Martens’ film, we learn – in ways reminiscent of The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Memento, The Usual Suspects and Fargo  -- Oscar and his ex-con co-workers at a plastic Christmas tree factory legally come into a large sum of money. Unfortunately, money can destroy the best of victories, especially ones among thieves.

Violent, predictable and splattered with morose humor, if you are willing to suspend disbelief back to the days before DNA testing, this Norwegian holiday tale, written by Jo Nesbø (Headhunters), makes for moderate, middlebrow entertainment. The film’s strongest suits are Lina Nordqvist's excellent production design andthe performances from its cast, including Hellum, Henrik Mestad as an arrogant detective, Mads Ousdal as Oscar’s lifelong buddy and Fridtjov Saheim as a crooked ex-cop.

FILM REVIEW: HAPPY, HAPPY

Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen) in Happy, Happy.

The fears of a frau

By Ed Rampell

Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky’s feature debut, Happy, Happy is a Nordic screwball comedy about marital mayhem, infidelity, closeted homosexuality, slavery and more for adults. Written, shot and produced by women -- screenwriter Ragnhild Tronvoll, cinematographer Anna Myking and producer Synnove Horsdal -- Happy, Happy is also a Scandinavian equivalent to a chick flick.

Kaja (a fetching Agnes Kittelsen) is a wistful wife in a sexless marriage with Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen). The couple have one son, Theodor (Oskar Hernæs Brandsø), and they live not so happily ever after in a rural part of Norway, where they rent a spare house on adjoining property to an unknown couple: the prettier Elisabeth (Danish actress Maibritt Saerens), Sigve (Henrik Rafaelsen) and their adapted African son, Noa (Ram Shihab Ebedy).

Kaja is curious about the newcomers, whom she disparagingly compares herself to and places on a proverbial pedestal. But far from being the deal couple Kaja imagines them to be, we soon find out that Elisabeth and Sigve have retreated to the countryside due to problems their own marriage is experiencing. The mixture of the two couples proves to be a combustible combination, and all hell breaks loose.

In the hands of a more somber helmer -- say, the Ingmar Bergman of 1973’s Scenes from a Marriage or Francois Truffaut of 1981’s The Woman Next Door -- Happy could have devolved into a tragedy. Instead, Sewitsky directs with a deft, droll touch, saving the film from being about endless, dreary Nordic nights filled with contemplation of the sheer meaninglessness of life, existential angst, oh woe is me, blah, blah and blah. Sewitsky’s comic panache spares us, and a quartet of upbeat musicians periodically appear from out of nowhere to serenade and amuse viewers with folksy tunes sung in English in the otherwise subtitled film.

Although her husband belittles her, Kaja is the central character, not the more glamorous, upscale, colder Elisabeth, precisely because the somewhat cloddish Kaja is essentially a warm woman, full of yearnings for love. Often, when you see films the behavior of characters seems completely inexplicable. But if you listen closely to the dialogue, when Kaja briefly, offhandedly recounts her personal back story, it all makes sense. Kittelsen’s performance reminded me of Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh’s similarly titled 2008 Happy-Go-Lucky and in 2010’s Made In Dagneham.

The sex scenes alternate between fun and funny (I could almost imagine Lina Wertmuller shooting some of the sequences, with her tongue firmly ensconced in cheek). The exuberance of new love and sexual awakenings are, of course, intoxicating, those rare moments when we feel truly, fully alive. If I have one criticism of this film dealing with sexuality it’s that while there’s full frontal male nudity, the women are, for some strange reason, less revealed. This works against the storyline, as it is largely about Kaja’s self-revelation.

The sexual interplay (and lack of) of the adults is mirrored by the strange role playing of the two sons, which takes on a First World/ Third World twist, as the blond-haired, blue-eyed Theodor “enslaves” his black neighbor. Some viewers may find this subplot to be disturbing, even offensive.

Yet somehow things manage to work themselves out, due to the writer and director’s comic-tragic vision of this journey we call life. Despite the vicissitudes of her relationships, Kaja manages to come into her own as a newly empowered, confident, independent woman. And like Nora before in another Scandinavian work of art, Kaja too leaves her doll’s house.

It’s an affirmation of life that after the dreadful mass murder at Norway this past summer the first Norwegian film to reach our shores is called Happy, Happy -- and seeing this movie, which won Sundance’s World Cinema Jury Prize, I did feel, well, you know: Happy.     

TRIBECA 2011: TURN ME ON, GODDAMMIT

Alma (Helene Bergsholm) in Turn Me On, Goddammit.

Talk to the hand

By Don Simpson

Alma (Helene Bergsholm) is a 15-year-old virgin...well, except by her own hand; but what else is a teenage girl supposed to do when she is trapped in a secluded Norwegian town that has nothing to offer except empty roads, sheep, tractors and hay? Alma wants to get all hey, hey in the hayloft with Artur (Matias Myren), but until that time comes, Alma must rely on a friendly phone sex operator at "Wet and Wild Dreams" to get her rocks off. 

A relatively normal teenager with an overactive imagination that has been hijacked by hyperactive hormones, Alma daydreams incessantly about a variety of sexual encounters. Her fantasies begin to get so confused with reality that neither Alma nor the audience know which is which. It is important to note that despite the unquenchable itch in her crotch, Alma never reduces herself to trying to do the deed with just anyone; she is the master of her own domain and is perfectly content racking up her mother's telephone bill with calls to "Wet and Wild Dreams." That is, until her mother (Henriette Steenstrup) sees the bill.

One fantastical (?) encounter with Artur seems so real that it leaves Alma totally convinced that he actually "poked" her, but after she recounts the absurd-yet-innocent event to her friends, Alma becomes an instant freak, earning herself the nickname of "Dick-Alma" (a moniker that most 15-year-old girls would not aspire to possess). Even Alma's friends, Ingrid (Beate Støfring) and Saralou (Malin Bjørhovde), stay clear of her. Trudging onward in an even more isolated haze of high school, Alma rides her misfit status like a roll of coins into a not-so-wild world of booze, hash and nicked porn mags.

Adapted from Olaug Nilssen's novel of the same name, writer-director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen shows us how the repressive tendencies of small rural towns can really screw with the adolescent minds of its inhabitants. The kids of Turn Me On, Goddammit feel locked up and oppressed and hormonal tension is boiling inside them.

The cast is played primarily by teenage actors, lending Turn Me On, Goddammit the aura of an authentically awkward adolescent world that is saturated with overwhelming sexuality. In Hollywood, these kids would have been total horn-dogs, talking raunchily about wanting to get into each other's pants; but Jacobsen's film is incredibly subtle, approaching teenage sexuality naturally rather than exaggeratedly. The high schoolers in Turn Me On, Goddammit are way too shy and timid to discuss sex with each other, thus causing their brains to become overloaded with closeted thoughts and desires.

Another interesting aspect of Turn Me On, Goddammit is the character of Saralou. She gives Jacobsen the opportunity to attack the use of capital punishment in the United States, specifically Texas. Saralou's sole desire is to travel to Texas in order to protest the death penalty. In the meantime, she has become pen pals with several death row inmates in Texas, using the prisoners as sounding boards for all of her pent up adolescent frustrations.

SFIFF 2011: THE TROLL HUNTER

A scene from The Troll Hunter.

Bridges upside down 

By Don Simpson

Writer-director André Øvredal provides us with the set-up: 283 hours of mysterious footage has been found. After extensive investigation, the footage is concluded to be authentic. (Cue rolling of eyes, it is one of those films…) Said footage was shot by a group of Norwegian university students who were working on a documentary story about bear poaching, but stumbled upon something significantly larger…and smellier.

When we first meet the three co-eds — Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) and Johanna (Johanna Mørck) — they are tracking the movements of a suspicious woodsman named Hans (Otto Jespersen). They suspect that Hans is an evil bear poacher, but after following him into the woods one night they discover that Hans’ game is way bigger than an average bear.

Hans, exhausted from decades of troll hunting, does not have the energy to chase away the young filmmakers; instead he sees it as an opportunity to spill the beans, allowing the students to follow him while he provides them with priceless information concerning the mythology of trolls, the most effective ways to kill them and how the Norwegian government has covered-up the troll problem.

This Norwegian found footage mockumentary comes from the same pseudo-verite, shaky-cam tradition of Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project (Øvredal also pays homage to Jurassic Park), but it opts to delve deep into the fascinating “the truth is out there” underbelly of government conspiracies. Portraying Hans as an employee of the Troll Security Service with the thankless job of dutifully abiding by the mercy of an over-authoritative government bureaucrat (Hans Morten Hansen), Øvredal sarcastically comments on the relationship between the government and the life-risking, under-paid, blue collar labor force responsible for carrying out the government’s ridiculous demands on a daily basis. It is impossible not to have sympathy for Hans as he is repeatedly being used and abused by his government employer.

The Troll Hunter has the shocking audacity to take this entire premise seriously and that is precisely why it succeeds. Unlike most found footage films, Øvredal has the wherewithal to stay true to the film’s first person perspective, never once falling back on establishing shots or relying upon footage that could have never been photographed by the protagonists. The found footage is obviously edited — whittled down from the purported 283 hours of source material — thus allowing for the pacing to be streamlined. It is also readily apparent that Øvredal concentrated on the quality of the special effects, making The Troll Hunter a surprisingly well-produced addition to the found-footage genre.

The Troll Hunter screens April 23, 11:30 p.m., Sundance Kubuki Cinemas; April 25, 6:15 p.m., New People. For more information: Troll Here.