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Avant-garde filmmaker Rob Trezenga remains true to experimental form in The Fishing Place, a befuddling World War II drama that's solely for "slow cinema" and art-house audiences. An interesting premise purposely loses narrative focus in favor of stylized visuals and exaggerated theatrics. The dialogue remains sparse and minimal throughout, with extended takes that linger for dramatic effect. These tactics don't work and make an already short film achingly sluggish. The weirdness compounds until a bizarre and frustrating third act turn that's meant to be clever but lands with a colossal thud.

A Nazi Spy

The Fishing PlaceDramaWarInternational1.5/5Release DateFebruary 7, 2025Runtime94 MinutesDirectorRob TregenzaCast

Eindride Eidsvold

Ola Otnes

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ExpandCollapsePros & ConsAbsolutely beautiful cinematography.A maddening experience that teases and then provides nothing at all.The characters are empty and dull and the story is sluggish, ultimately leading nowhere.The film's final 20 minutes is a failed attempt at arthouse experimentation.

Set in Telemark,...

Rob Tregenza is always questioning what can be accomplished with the simple building blocks of cinema. In particular, his career can be seen as one long investigation of the possibilities of both the tracking shot and the crane shot. Since 1988’s Talking to Strangers, he’s experimented with the crane shot—a technique invented to show off the entirety of D.W. Griffith’s Babylon set in his Intolerance—on much smaller productions, a choice that always brings a touch of the miraculous to the mundane, as if, in those moments where the camera hovers over the characters in his worlds, we’re looking through the eyes of angels.

Tregenza’s The Fishing Place, like his previous Gavagai, is both shot and set in rural Norway. But this is a period piece, and his frames abound in military uniforms, old Ford Model A’s, and period-accurate furniture. Here, World War II continues to rage on,...

Tomas (Stellan Skarsgård) was married with three children when Anja (Andrea Bræin Hovig) met him. She didn’t want to fall in love, but twenty years and three more kids later show that’s exactly what happened. When Anja raised their babies, Tomas worked—a lot. When it was time for her to go back to work, she did too—a lot. Both alternated their career-motivated traveling so one could stay home and watch the family, a promise to be present at night with the kids honored by just her. Still unmarried (life always got in the way) and barely together emotionally, even their youngest (Alfred Vatne’s Isak) is aware their mutual affection has grown cold. And while a cancer diagnosis bridged the gap last Christmas, that distance quickly returned.

So when Anja discovers a metastasis has formed on her brain as a result of the lung cancer she beat exactly one year ago,...