Drømmeslottet

This movie makes you laugh and it makes you cry. A sad and funny story about life in a collective in Oslo-Norway in the late seventies/early eighties. Marxism and Socialism is the background of the characters in this movie. The post-WWII generation with ideals like socialism and marxism is vividly described in this incredible good movie.

All problems in the collective between the 3-4 families(about 15-17 people) are solved in democratic fashion. But when time goes by, different views is day-lighted and some un-agreements between the otherwise so democratic and peaceful people, results in some fights and clashes among them.

The little world of democracy and socialism way of thinking in the collective becomes "disturbed" by individual differences. The new political world on the outside, with new views on matters is coloring the people in the collective.

Nudity, sex, violence, suicide, profanity, cursing.....oh yeah, this is social realism as I like it.

A disturbing and hilarious movie. This is the mother of scandinavian social realism. One of Wam and Venneroeds all time classics.

With stagy, hammy acting and overformulated, often intellectualized dialogue, the films by the Norwegian filmmaking duo Svend Wam and Petter Vennerød were often panned, and ultimately ridiculed, despite often attracting large audiences and addressing relevant sociological issues. Drømmeslottet ticks all these boxes, but in contrast to some of their less successful films, it has a brilliant script with real drive and purpose. The filmmakers have things to say here; they hit out at the solidarity movement and collectivism of the 1970s, and not least how the people involved tended to politicize their socializing with other members of the society. What's best about Wam and Vennerød's point-making here is how they're never one-sided. Most ideas and reactions are put under the microscope, and as they often did, Wam and Vennerød had the audacity to make it all bizarrely entertaining by letting their eccentric characters clash in every which way. By the end, you're no longer annoyed by the theatricality of it all - you're embracing it.

The Dream Castle ("Drømmeslottet" in original Norwegian) is the third last of the infamous collaboration between the self-made independent Norwegian filmmakers Svend Wam og Petter Vennerød.

The movie is about a collective Oslo-Norway in the late seventies, with goal achieving, hippie aftermath, and Marxism and Socialism as a backdrop. Sex, nudity, adultery, gayness - you have it all here.

This movie has a great plot, but the script feels a bit contrived and filled with artificial dialog. A pity, because this could have been a timeless classic.

Petter Vennerød plays one of the main roles in this film himself.

The movie soundtrack includes Jørn Hoel's monster hit "Har en drøm" which adds quite well to the movie.

This movie was made available in 2024 when it was released on interregional (region-free) Blu-Ray Disk by Norwegian Film Classics as the fifth release in a new series with classics, NFK0054, with subtitles in English, and is supposed to be held in stock for film lovers.