Gunnar Goes God

Confonted with the big questions in life an atheist might face some difficulties, unless they're hardcore materialist that have a sorted relationship with grim death.

I was a bit worried that this film would be a philosophy 101-lesson about the emptiness of a materialistic middle class life. And to some degree in is, but it still has some original observations and curious takes on the subject and is well worth the time. Just seeing the content faces of the coptic munks living on an existence minimum (to us) is worth the ticket.

The climax offers both answers and questions, and you leave the cinema a reflecting individual asking yourself fundamental questions, whether you agree with the director (Gunnar) or not. Just as Socrates would have wanted it.

The movie is maybe a bit slow and could have spared itself the many artistic pauses in the monologue, but it wasn't to bothering. It gave the good quotes time to sink in, but some of the banalities didn't need to be followed by 5 seconds of silence, in my opinion.

Just saw the film. I have considered Gunnar Goes Comfortable a seminal and important work in Norwegian film, and in the documentary genre since that film was first released. So this follow up was eagerly anticipated. And what a disappointment. I work myself within art, and especially within this form of artistic self confession, and it is clear from where I'm sitting that Gunnar Hall Jensen is confused and unfocused. The energy, the desire, the universal search in Goes Comfortable is gone. He seems so have made this film for entirely different reasons than a need to do so. The film seems to forget the previous one. Some clips are repeated, as are too many of the original statements. A movie discussion religion which does not mention at all his own relationship with Zen/Osho, a change which was supposedly an important move in his life, is forgotten here.

Other than that, the movie is shot like a television documentary, its superficial, never gets close to the depth of Comfortable, has absolutely no focus or edge... Too many scenes are far too clearly staged, reminiscent of that awful, but funny, Borat. His statement, which used to be so universal, truthful, emotional, personal, are replaced with what seems like text ripped out of some reactionary left wing newspaper, nothing new, everything is mundane, and no real conclusion is made. Not only is the film much more removed from Gunnar's own personal life, and emotions, it doesn't even get emotional on anyone else either.

For a film dealing with religion and God, the movie is less deep than the film about his own life, which is odd, since one would thing that, just the concept, God is more deeper than a mere mortals life...

If you loved Gunnar Goes Comfortable this movie is nice watch just to see Gunnar again (as the first film made you feel like you got to know him on a personal level, rare in such a extent in movies in general) and want to see how he looks and thinks now. But if you haven't, nothing more than illegally downloading the film is cheap enough to warrant such a film...

As a Gunnar Hall Jensen..."fan", the above statement is a very said affair to have to admit, but felt like it needed sharing.