A Master Builder

Halvard Solness (Wallace Shawn) is a successful architect on his sick bed. Aline (Julie Hagerty) is his long suffering wife. He tells Dr. Herdal (Larry Pine) about how he kept his worker Ragnar Brovik (Jeff Biehl). He hired Ragnar's girlfriend Hilde Wangel (Lisa Joyce) to keep Ragnar working for him. Hilde comes over to visit Halvard. She reminds him about their first meeting ten years ago as a fourteen year old.

This is based on Henrik Ibsen's play. There is a weird unrealism by keeping all the Norwegian names. It's strange to see this exercise and a somewhat effective one. Lisa Joyce's overacting only adds to the otherworldly feel. Wallace Shawn is brilliant as always and keeps the audience's attention. Julie Hagerty does her most powerful work. It has tension from dancing on the edge of madness but it never escapes its play origins.

A successful, ego-maniacal architect (Wallace Shawn) who has spent a lifetime bullying his wife, employees and mistresses wants to make peace as his life approaches its final act.

While this is a very good film, it must be stressed: this was originally a play, and it comes across very obviously as a play, even on film. The dialogue is dense, far more than your usual conversation. And the sets are minimal. Not sparse, but few... are there even six different rooms in the whole two hours? I feel like I have seen another version of this play done before (on film, not in person). But this probably is the defining version. Wallace Shawn is great, but really Lisa Joyce steals the show. In the few years this has been out, her career has moved along steadily, but she's not the big name she should be. Someone cast this woman in the right role!

This is a powerful adaptation of a great Ibsen play. And by "adaptation," I mean there's an interesting little spin that, while faithful to the original, gives this version a bit of a twist. I'm sure Ibsen would approve. But I can say no more about that without getting into spoilers.

Like everything written by Ibsen, this movie is dialogue-heavy. It's not for lovers of fast-moving flashy special effects or loud background music. You can't really watch it while surfing your cell phone; almost every line of dialogue teaches you more about the character and pushes the plot forward. Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn are both in this film - veterans of another dialogue-heavy film, "My Dinner With Andre." Every single member of the cast is very strong. "A Master Builder" is the first Ibsen play that I ever saw, forty years ago, and it got me hooked on Ibsen for life. Check this one out and see if it hooks you, too.

This film is a story of the old gods. Solness is the Demiurgos, the Insane God who created the Earth and the Universe we live in.

Seen in this light, suddenly the film makes sense.

The dialogue is encoded. Note how the discussions in the first few scenes are nonspecific to the point of nonsense.

That is - unless you know the code.

They are talking about the creation of the Universe (by Solness), and who will take it over, and who will create the next one (the Villa by the Lake).

Does Ragnar have the Right Stuff to be a God? That is in question. Solness says "No".

Ragnar? Ragnarok, Chaos. The Undoing. The coming apocalypse that Kaia (Gaia) will participate in (the Wedding). This is about whether the Earth will go through Apocalypse, Chaos, and begin anew, or whether She will hang on with Solness in the old way, and try and work it out.

Solness is in love with Kaia, but in reality he wants to keep Ragnar (Lucifer?) close because he needs him. Light and Dark being nothing without each other. In this case Lucifer is not to be confused with Satan (Shaitan - the Opposer) who is mere darkness as in - when the old sun (Saturn) went away. He is The Light Bringer, the Shining One of Milton.

The film is also Masonic in a BIG way. But that is an easier decode, and I will leave it to "Jay" who works at that level.

I can't help but feel that this will definitely be the kind of film that sort of warrants a rewatch in the future, especially because it just comes across as pretty complex, maybe too much so. It seems like a complicated play, but all I know is that the acting is outstanding. It has the sortof very dreamy, airy atmosphere that one wants out of a film like this, since it's the atmosphere that really help carry it even when the dialogue seems a bit puzzling. Overall, definitely has many admirable qualities, certainly not your run-of-the-mill stuff, but then again being based on a play one expects that. Many probably won't like it, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a definite winner.