While Erik Skjoldbjærg built upon the established cinematic traditions of procedural crime thrillers, in the light of the recent trend of atmospheric crime procedurals such as True Detective, The Killing, Prisoners, 1997’s Insomnia, in hindsight looks to be a direct aesthetic antecedent for these other more successful pictures/series.
Showing posts with label Norwegian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norwegian. Show all posts
Friday, 22 August 2014
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) dir. Jalmari Helander
Starring: Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila
***½
By Greg Klymkiw
While it is an indisputable truth that Jesus is the reason for the season. the eventual commercialization of Christmas inevitably yielded the fantasy figure of Santa Claus, the jolly, porcine dispenser of toys to children. Living with his equally corpulent wife, Mrs. Claus, a passel of dwarves and a herd of reindeer at the North Pole, Santa purportedly toils away in his workshop for the one day of the year when he can distribute the fruits of his labour into the greedy palms of children the world over. Is it any wonder how we all forget that Christmastime is to celebrate the birth of Our Lord Baby Jesus H. Christ?
In the movies, however, we have had numerous dramatic renderings of the true spirit of Christmas - tales of redemption and forgiveness like the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol, Frank Capra's immortal It's a Wonderful Life and Phillip Borsos's One Magic Christmas, but fewer and far between are the Christmas movies that address the malevolence of the season celebrating Christ's Birth. There's the brilliant Joan Collins segment in the Amicus production of Tales From the Crypt, the Silent Night Deadly Night franchise and, perhaps greatest of all, that magnificent Canadian movie Black Christmas from Bob (Porky's) Clark.
And now, add Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale to your perennial Baby-Jesus-Worship viewings! This creepy, terrifying, darkly hilarious and dazzlingly directed bauble of Yuletide perversity takes us on a myth-infused journey to the northern border between Finland and Lapland where a crazed archeologist and an evil corporation have discovered and unearthed the resting place of the REAL Santa Claus. When Santa is finally freed from the purgatorial tomb, he runs amuck and indulges himself in a crazed killing spree - devouring all the local livestock before feeding upon both adults and children who do not subscribe to the basic tenet of Santa's philosophy of: "You better be Good!" A motley crew of local hunters and farmers, having lost their livelihood, embark upon an obsessive hunt for Santa. They capture him alive and hold him ransom to score a huge settlement from the Rare Exports corporation who, in turn, have nefarious plans of their own for world wide consumer domination. How can you go wrong if you control the REAL Santa?
There's always, however, a spanner in the works, and it soon appears that thousands of Claus-ian clones emerge from the icy pit in Lapland and embark upon a desperate hunt for their leader. These vicious creatures are powerful, ravenous and naked. Yes, naked! Thousands of old men with white beards traverse across the tundras of Finland with their saggy buttocks and floppy genitalia exposed to the bitter northern winds. For some, this might even be the ultimate wet dream, but I'll try not to think too hard about who they might be.
All cultures, of course, have their own indigenous versions of everyone's favourite gift-giver and this eventually led to the contemporary rendering of the Santa Claus we're all familiar with. Finland, however, absorbed in considerable wintery darkness for much of the year, insanely overflowing with rampant alcoholism and being the birthplace of the brilliant Kaurismäki filmmaking brothers, is one delightfully twisted country. It's no surprise, then, that the Finns' version of jolly old Saint Nick is utterly malevolent. As presented in this bizarre and supremely entertaining movie, Santa is one demonic mo-fo!!!
Directed with panache by the young Finnish director Jalmari Helander (and based on his truly insane short films), Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is one unique treat. It's a Christmas movie with scares, carnage and loads of laughs. Helander renders spectacular images in scene after scene and his filmmaking vocabulary is sophisticated as all get-out. In fact, some of his shots out-Spielberg Spielberg, and unlike the woeful, tin-eyed JJ Abrams (he of the loathsome Super-8), I'd put money on Helander eventually becoming the true heir apparent to the Steven Spielberg torch. Helander's imaginative mise-en-scène is especially brilliant as he stretches a modest budget (using stunning Norwegian locations) and renders a movie with all the glorious production value of a bonafide studio blockbuster. The difference here, is that it's not stupid, but blessed with intelligence and imagination.
While the movie is not suitable for very young children, it actually makes for superb family viewing if the kiddies are at least 10-years-old (and/or not whining sissy-pants). Anyone expecting a traditional splatter-fest will be disappointed, but I suspect even they will find merit in the movie. Most of all, Moms, Dads and their brave progeny can all delight in this dazzling, thrilling Christmas thriller filled with plenty of jolts, laughs, adventure and yes, even a sentimental streak that rivals that of the master of all things darkly wholesome, Steven Spielberg.
You have hereby been warned:
You better watch out,Or in the words of Tiny Tim: "God Bless us, everyone."
you better not cry,
you better not pout,
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town,
with razor-sharp big teeth,
a taste for human flesh,
he knows if you've been bad or good,
and he likes to eat kids fresh. Hey!
"Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale" is currently available in a superb Bluray and DVD from the Oscilloscope Pictures (and distributed in Canada via the visionary company VSC). I normally have little use for extra features, but this release is one of the few exceptions. It includes Helander's brilliant shorts and some truly informative and entertaining making-of docs.This is truly worth owning and cherishing - again and again!
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
SUNDANCE 2011 - The Troll Hunter
Starring: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Morck, Tomas Alf Larsen, Urmila Berg-Domaas
***
By Alan Bacchus
After a festival of heavy brooding dramas The Troll Hunter was a breath of fresh air, a lively adventure film using the now-entrenched found footage technique mixed with a fun b-movie creature-feature genre.
Playing in the Midnight Section, it wasn’t a premiere for The Troll Hunter as it played to excited audiences at Fantastic Fest, but with the elevated playing field of Park City which meant more traditional journalists and international buyers watching the film, it was a signficant inclusion in the Festival.
We catch up with the story following two film students on the tail of a alleged bear poacher who may or may not be hunting bears illegally around the rural Norwegian hinterland. The kids are both adventurous and naïve in their attempts to interview the mysterious hunter. Sensing the kids’ enthusiasm and the fact they have a camcorder available to document the trip, the Hunter brings them along. After the first encounter they’re soon to learn the Hunter is not hunting bears but trolls, giant trolls.
We learn that trolls are not uncommon, in fact, they’ve been rounded up and placed in special quarantined forests for years by the Norwegian government, but with four trolls on the loose outside their designated area the Troll Hunter has been sent to capture or kill them.
With the delicious governmental conspiracy in place Øvredal executes a fun filled monster-movie highlighted by some fantastic old school special effects. Although Ray Harryhausen is the inspiration the effects are invisible and seamlessly incorporated into the verite found footage imagery. And Øvredal admirably learns from the mistakes some of these other found footage films by keeping the camera level and steady for most of the time, thus losing the ugly nauseating shakiness. That said, there are subtitles to read as well so I highly recommend sitting way in the back.
Written as a classic b-movie anti-hero, the Hunter is placed in the Snake Plisskin/Indiana Jones mold, a soft spoken, big stick carrying fighter who does his tasks with workmanlike efficiency. The seriousness of his demeanour, and ho-um attitude to the fact that he’s fighting living breathing trolls. contributes greatly to deadpan ironic humour.
This peculiar Scandinavian sense of humour, the incorporation of Norwegian mythology, and even a little bit of black metal heard in the end credits make this a uniquely Norwegian action/horror film.
Monday, 14 September 2009
TIFF 2009: Max Manus
Starring: Aksel Hennie, Agnes Kittelsen, Ken Duken, Nicolai Cleve Broch
**
The Norwegian resistance movement is the subject of this big budgeted sprawling co-production treatment. Clearly this an important story to Norwegians - the true tale of a group of youngsters, turned commando terrorists who, over the course of 5 years, manage to help turn the tide of war. It’s a noble effort featuring some fine young actors playing their roles with honour and dignity, but there’s too much story in a too short a time resulting in a cinematic dilution of emotion and suspense.
Max Manus (Aksel Hennie) is introduced fighting for Norway against the German invasion in a raucous battle scene in the snow. Max tells us in voiceover the embarrassment of his country’s quick surrender fueled his desire to fight even harder against the Nazis. We watch Max form a résistance group of likeminded young people, who produce propaganda papers with as much zeal as a group of frat kids. But when their carelessness finds Max caught by the Gestapo, the reality of their actions becomes quickly apparent.
Max manages to escape and regroup in Scotland where he’s trained as a commando to work in the large Allied-coordinated resistance movement. His missions involve planting bombs on boats and buildings under the noses of the Nazis. Max becomes so good at what he does he becomes a legend within the Nazi SS, who are determined to find him. One by one his fellow warriors and good friends are hunted down and killed leaving only Max to put the final nail in the coffin for the Nazis.
There’s nothing false in “Max Manus” yet the film remains at a distance too far for the audience to be intimately invested in the emotions of these events. It’s the ‘hopscotching’ effect of skipping through the highlights of the five years over which the film takes place. In the first 15mins we meet Max, see him as a soldier on the front, get injured, start up a resistance, develop a propaganda newspaper, get caught, escape and join up with the Allies in Scotland. Scenes are just too short to enjoy and the filmmakers even resort to annoying narration to fill in the details of what the montage scenes can’t. Thankfully they discard the device when it’s not longer necessary.
In skipping too fast between locations, we never feel the threat against Max and his fighters. One moment they’re planting a bomb underneath a battleship and the next moment they’re in Sweden or Scotland sipping whisky. Perhaps some dramatic licence was needed to keep the characters under the pressure cooker of undercover terrorism - the set pieces in ‘Valkyre’ or ‘Munich’ serving as the best cinematic examples.
Other opportunities are missed all over the place as well, chiefly the parallel stories of Max Manus and his foil Siegfried, the chief Nazi SS man. By the nature of the editing pattern there would appear to be some sort of ‘Catch Me If You Can’ cat and mouse chase going on, but never does one influence the other. Looking carefully Siegfried actually has no tangible narrative purpose and could have been cut out altogether without harm to the story. And even if Siegfried were weaved in appropriately there’s much screen time devoted to some romance between he and his secretary, which inexplicably disappears before the third act.
The only respite comes, unfortunately, in the final credits when we see photographs of the real life characters next to the actors' faces - not an original device, but one which finally anchors down the reality of the story. It’s too little too late, because the filmmakers have missed this potentially thrilling story with uninspired and only adequate storytelling.
Saturday, 5 September 2009
O Horten
Starring: Baard Owe, Espen Skjønberg, ta Nørby, Henny Moan, Bjørn Floberg
**
O Horten, a Norwegian art comedy, and frequent festival traveler which arrives on DVD from Sony Pictures Classics, plays like ‘About Schmidt’ by way of Roy Andersson – one of those entries in the self-conscious cinema of nothingness. But quirky wideangle imagery and occasional glimpses of surrealism aren’t enough to sustain 90mins of your time.
An odd looking and shy Odd Horten (appropriate first name) is a train engineer on his last day of work before retirement after 40 years of service. It’s the only thing in his life, and we suspect he won’t have much to live for without his beloved trains. On his last day, he misses his shift causing him to wander the streets of Oslo (?) for a couple days meeting other lost souls while contemplating his existence.
Attempts at deadpan humour come off as just plain dead. Director Bent Hamer visualizing the film with the wideangled eye of Roy Andersson (the Swedeish master surrealist and director of 'Songs from the Second Floor'), but without any of his scathing social commentary . But there’s so little of anything to grab onto other than the wide angle wide shots - and some of them look truly majestic. The situations Horten finds himself in wouldn’t be perceived as surreal if it were not for Hamer’s chosen camera angles.
So it seems false and contrived an effort to make someone else’s film. Its not as surreal as he thinks it is, not as profound as he wants, nor as funny and charming as Hamer’s incessesant tone implies. All style over substance in the worst sense.
If anything the only thing we to latch onto is Bard Owe’s thoroughly weathered unexpressive face. His hairstyle, moustache, nicely fitting, though old-fashioned suit and smoking pipe suggests a man stuck in the past, in a routine which is the sole purpose for his existence. And so his reflections upon his ski-jumper mother who broke with tradition and skied in a man's sports is not lost on us.
And so does a purpose to this banal exercise emerge at the end? Horton steals a pair of skis and attempts to ski jump in the middle of night. We don’t even know if he can ski. For all we know he jumped off, broke both legs and I guess its some attempt to connect with past, - he doesn't. But if he did it would have been the much needed jolt of real comedy this film badly needs. Narratively it exasperates the depressing melancholy of this whole affair.
"O Horten" is available on DVD from Sony Picture Classics Home Entertainment
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