Kong Curling

I saw this film as part of the Rotterdam Film Festival 2012. I felt myself being a minority on this IFFR 2012 opening night, where everyone but me seemed to enjoy themselves. Maybe due to not having enough sleep the night before, I nearly dozed off some of the time.

I don't think that my lack of understanding of the curling sport was the cause. Neither is the insignificant story line at fault, only serving as binding element of the respective sketches. I have no problems with that. Nevertheless, I saw lots of positive reviews, so I infer not being the right audience for this type of humor.

Yet, a few running gags were funny, like the recurring soft drink delivery man receiving complaints about the noise he made. Same can be said about the man who had problems sleeping, attempting several solutions but miserably failing most of the time. On the other hand, some of the running gags were on the border of wearing out, like the former mental hospital patient making a habit of yelling X-rated sentences. I sincerely hope having more luck with the 40+ other films that I booked for this film festival.

Finally came around to watching this. I am Norwegian, and that's how I know this movie exists.. There was some talk of this movie before it came out, I mean, almost the whole cast is pretty well known here (in Norway). But after the movie came out, it died down real quick. I was kind of wondering why, and now I know: it's not that great.

It's typically Norwegian-quirky. (sooo many quirky weird movies in Norway) It's a comedy, with some (sort of) seriousness to it. Kind of a mix of feel good and feel bad. Mostly it's pretty silly, but it still has this underlying.. darkness.. ish. I don't know.

The movie has its fun parts. Kaare Conradi is excellent. He is a well known actor in Norway, and he impressed me here. Jon Oigarden is also damn good. It's seems like they were having fun with their parts.

I do think you have to be Norwegian to understand whats funny. Well, at least the stuff I thought was funny. Stuff that will probably get lost in translation. Also, most of the actors here are well known, and that also helps you understand the humor. So yeah, this ones is for Norwegians. But even they will probably not love it.

This comedy by main character Atle Antonsen, playing the character Truls Paalsen (obviously named after the Norwegian Olympic gold skip Paal Trulsen) was quite different from what i expected. It was much funnier!

Watching it on the premiere night in the cinema after reading some mediocre critics mainly giving it three out of six stars, my expectations wasn't the greatest, though I know the type of humour Atle Antonsen is an exponent for. This film has been much awaited, and I really can't say that I didn't really enjoy the whole 80 minutes of it. And I wasn't alone, with this. The audience in the theater had a good time and lots of laughs.

The story? Not important, obviously, since this film is carried by sketches. But it goes like this: Pålsen and his team was the best, until Pålsen got psychic problems with oversizing details. 10 years after he's getting out of hospital, and finds that he has to save his heavily smoking mentor with a costly lunge transplant abroad. The way to do it? Make a comeback and win a million.

It's kinda difficult to explain the visuals of the movie, but it gives a plain, but still colorful kind of seventies style, though this story is supposed to be much nearer in time. It's odd, quirky, weird and outrageously funny. It reminds me of some of films by the likes of Pål Sletaune ("Budbringeren"), Bent Hamers ("Eggs", "Kitchen stories"), Cohen- brothers ("Fargo", "Burn after reading"), Harakld Zwart ("One night at McCools") or maybe Aki Kaurismäkis ("The Man Without A Past") or films like that, but still it's way more crazy. Obviously Cohens "The Big Lebowski" has been a great inspiration as well, taking the sport curling on the same ride as the dude did in that great Cohen-classic.

There's a great cast of comics doing their small parts, everyone doing it great. Actually Atle Antonsen is not by far the funniest, but he keeps the film together. It's not a perfect film - no to be that it loses out on the climax and maybe also direction. But the gags and characters is funny enough to make me feel sad I didn't get to see more.

Great humor, great characters, great filming, not so great story - but still one of the best Norwegian comedies ever. I think some quotes from this will live on forever. Well done!