Amundsen

Nansen and amundsen are superheros in norwegian history, thats a fact, but to make a believable account of his life on film is not an easy task, because he was a controversial person , also in norway. but they try and the result are within reason with a few flaws , a good presentation of roald amundsen . i wish the makers had used a bit more room for his companiogns, who more than thrice showed to be the beams that kept the house of cards standing.

its a slow paced movie, and i had expected even more action than presented here. the way the narrative is presented, through his brother leon, are pretty original, i liked that. the acting are not more than average, quite boring at times, but maybe life then were boring and a waiting game for news from the abyss. there are vast use of vfx and cgi, some are good,others pretty second hand. the end sequens, were amundsen flies the latham and dissapears are speculative,and people still speculates what happened,i dont know, maybe he flew to the gran canaries instead, living a silent and withdrawn life???.

its a norwegian film and the grumpy old man are quite proud by the product made by my countrymen, its well worth a view.recommended

Somehow this film manages to turn what should have been a celebration of a great explorer into a tedious and dreary story. The direction and editing at some points is clumsy and creates confusion. For some peculiar reason much of the dialogue is produced in hushed tones as though the actors were worried about waking up a baby somewhere. Could and should have been an epic story. Shame

Just because the film is going places (a few of them actually), it doesn't mean its pace is a fast one. Quite the opposite is the case. Therefor making it I reckon almost unwatchable for some. Having said that, if you are curious about the will and curiosity of men, that won't stop you (no pun intended).

I don't know the real persons/individuals and how truthful this is to what happened (and their interactions/rivalries), I just know that it does work decently on the big or small screen and for the movie and its purposes. Very nice cinematography and the acting is more than just solid too. Not for everyone, but that I reckon is true for many other movies too, in a different way.

Much to loud background "music and noise"! When Roald speaks it is set to low on volum, when background sound effects sets in it explodes in noise because of very poor mixing of sound. It almost destroys the movie for me. To bad. It would have been a much better movie with a decent job done on the sound.

AMUNDSEN is another exploration of a key figure in Norwegian history by director Espen Sandberg, whom previously has been a part of MAX MANUS and KON-TIKI. Two films that also highlights great achievements by Norwegians. As a very small country, us Norwegians have a tendency to root for and glorify people that achieves the spectacular, and we celebrate them as heroes. AMUNDSEN is a film about Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian polar explorer that lead the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage and the first first expedition to the South Pole amongst other things.

It's a film that attempts to explain and provide insight into who Roald Amundsen was, more so than to retell his expeditions. This is not an action-oriented film that focuses on the fight between man and nature. Much of the film is kind of told through a conversation between Amundsen's brother and Bess Magids, one of Amundsen's romances. This is the framework of the film, with Amundsen's achievements plotted in between throughout this conversation. It's a fine enough structure in theory and I appreciate that the filmmakers have decided to not just show an expedition and leave it at that, but instead to fully explore the man behind these great achievements. It doesn't glorify him or lift his hero status in any way. He's portrayed as a very flawed and slightly bitter man outside of his accomplishments. Unfortunately, the film only seems to scrape the surface of who he was. Heck, I would say that the film only touches the surface of everything it introduces.

The huge issue with AMUNDSEN is that it feels like a PowerPoint presentation with bullet points from Wikipedia to jump into every aspect of his life. The film is focused on trying to tell so much that it barely tells anything, but more importantly, it feels dramatically flat. Amundsen's relationship with Bess Magids is never properly explored. We're never told why they really care for each other. Amundsen's relationship with his brother, which is one of the biggest parts of the story, never leaves the emotionally impact that it should. It's too quickly glossed over. Even Amundsen's journey to the South Pole feels underwhelming. We're constantly told throughout the film that it's a dangerous expedition, but they don't show us that. When Amundsen finally reaches the South Pole (which is very early in the film), we should feel a sense of triumph, but instead I just sat there with a shoulder shrug. And that's the thing, the structure of the film doesn't work. It never lingers on the moments that are important in defining who Amundsen was, what the people around him meant to him, or what Amundsen meant to the people around him. It moves too quickly, but yet so slowly.

The performances are fine. Pål Sverre Hagen does a solid job as Amundsen (though the make-up used to make him look older is slightly distracting). The cinematography is great. There are couple of beautiful shots in it and you could see that the budget has been well-used. Which is why it's such a shame that film is struggling on a narrative level.