Oslo, 31. august

I think I learned about this film when I searched for the highest rated films on Rotten Tomatoes. I saw it had earned nearly universal high marks, so I decided to check it out.

It follows a recovering addict named Anders who is granted a leave from the rehab clinic where he is currently residing to go into Oslo for a job interview. While in Oslo, which he has not visited in some time since going to the clinic, he meets a number of old friends, attempts to reconnect with a former girlfriend, and visits some old haunts.

That is essentially all in the way of plot. What makes the film so affecting are the conversations he has with these friends about life, feelings of regret, lost opportunities, etc. The conversations seemed so authentic and realistic; the writers never gave into the temptation of injecting false notes of sentimentality..

Even though Anders is an addict, this isn't really an "addiction movie." His addiction is always there in the background, but the themes that the film explores are far more universal and general. And the lead actor's performance was very poignant and impressive. I definitely recommend this to anybody interested in a strong dialog and character-driven film.

bitter, cold, gray, powerful. pictures of disillusion. search of yourself in a strange world. desire of new beginning. close doors. out sense meetings. pain and drops of hope. the life has unique sense. the past can not be present or future. the force source of story is its universal value. Anders may be everybody. his trip to a little sense of existence or only for a realistic form of consolation is part of each man or woman. maybe, not so painful. he can be one of Dostoievsky characters. or only a Tchekov page silhouette. but he is more. he is a hero of our time. a kind of Sisif. or only his remains. few beautiful images. a magnificent performance of Anders Danielsen Lie. and a town as skin of fall. nothing else. only a room, a piano, a lake and last day of summer - perfect scene for last step.

This guy gets out of rehab. One of the reasons he's been there is Oslo, but it's Oslo he returns to, when leaving.

Life is about to proceed. The lives of others, that is. The guy from rehab slowly understands that he is dead and there is no way of getting back to what he anyway never had. Oslo is merciless.

Strong drama about the hopelessness a person feels while entering middle-age knowing that he has no experiences, no history, except for the well-known feeling of being worthless. Which isn't an experience in itself. It all ends with a cliffhanger. The chasm is the possibility of getting older.

'Oslo, August 31' (2011), the second film by Norwegian director Joachim Trier, is inspired by a French novel written in 1931, which was also brought to screen by Louis Malle during the Nouvelle Vague period of his career. Trier, a great admirer of this cinematic current, transplanted the story to the Norwegian capital, which is the favorite setting of his films. In fact, the film opens with an almost documentary journey through the city, with urban sequences associated with the thoughts of its permanent or temporary inhabitants. The city is the background for the lives and problems of those who live in it or pass through it, but it does not play an active role. One of the characters expresses this indifferent relationship with a phrase that can be a motto of the film: 'Society does not save those who want to self-destruct'.

The narrative structure of the film reminded me of the American TV series '24' which was very popular 15-20 years ago. Its hero, played by Kiefer Sutherland, saves the city, America or the world within 24 hours. The hero of Joachim Trier's film, Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), tries to save himself in the entire interval between two sunrises, and the mission proves to be no less difficult. Anders is nearing the end of a detox cure that has lasted several years. The result of the treatment is fragile. Physically, drug and alcohol addiction seems to have gone away. Psychologically, however, the motivation that makes most people continue to live beyond crises has disappeared - professional ambition, emotions in relationships with women or friends. In addition, the world has moved forward, age is beginning to show signs, friends have established families, years of absence from the CV raise questions when he is trying to get a job. The 24 hours that Anders spent in Oslo, during which he tries to renew contacts with the world from which he was absent, confronts him with the indifference of the surrounding society, all the more so as it is dressed in the velvet gloves of Scandinavian politeness and civility.

'Oslo, August 31' is not a 'feel good' film but rather a 'feel bad' one - melancholic and quite depressing. It was very difficult for me to identify in any way with the hero of the film, maybe because addiction to substances, feelings like uselessness and boredom, and the morals and codes of the world of northern Europe are foreign to me. I appreciated the way 'Oslo, August 31st' is filmed and the acting, especially Anders Danielsen Lie, although I also have a doubt about that. The role in this film is so similar to the one he played in 'Reprise', Joachim Trier's debut film, that I should see another film or more in which Danielsen Lie plays something different to be convinced by the quality and depth of his talent. Joachim Trier is without a doubt a talented director, very connected to what has happened or is happening in world cinema but also very attached to the city of Oslo where the stories in all his films that I have seen so far take place. These movies fall into the category of movies that I appreciate but not of those that I love.

The sober rationality of the young Norwegian intellectual classes provides a perfectly blank canvas on which to paint the conversely complex neuroses of the anti-hero, Anders. Anders is an intelligent and gifted opinionist and writer, but his addiction has left him riddled with insecurity. The film focuses on the most pivotal moment of this young man's life as he's tragically stuck between recovery and regression: that moment is both sprinkled with glimmers of hope and drenched in melancholia. Anders' contradiction is the eternal paradox of the addict, and perhaps Trier is presenting it as an allegory of the modern human condition. Anders Danielsen Lie gives an incredible performance as the enigmatic hero and the acting throughout is consistently authentic, convincing and engrossing. The soft-focus cinematography (Jakob Ihre) works well with a particularly engaging sound design which, along with very conscious direction, editing and general production design, makes for technically masterful cinema with an aesthetic that is both selectively minimal and enjoyably rich. Oslo is a tragedy. Its simple, melancholic tone and metropolitan landscapes make the film undeniably reminiscent of the French New Wave - think Hiroshima Mon Amour in present day Oslo. The film is minimal and stylized, presenting social realism in an artistic form without losing any of its dramatic potency to surrealism. Utterly convincing and captivating: an instant indie classic.