Um Homem Um Tanto Gentil

A Kaurismäki-style dark comedy about a man coming out of prison after a 12 year sentence. Stellan Skarsgårds character gets lots of complications, even though most are willing to give the convicted man a lot a chances to begin a new life, with warnings to not ever looking behind at the past.

That is of course impossible, starting over in his old environment of a run down Oslo suburb. Everyone gives him a chance, even the old acquainted mafia-boss, which wants him to kill again. Women of all kinds still finds him attractive, and his old debt to the local mafia-boss makes life more complicated than it should be. Is he ready to kill again?

Hans Petter Moland got lots of praise at Berlin Filmfestival with this worn down comedy. Especially the "sex for food"-scenes with his landlady, being the jealous sister of the mafia-boss, was making a buzz.

The film functions as a nice story, and is good entertainment, but seems to lack a little in the manuscript to make it a classic. The casting is perfect, though, and this film could really have been an instant classic. Still there's scenes that is quite memorable, and there's hope even in a quite hopeless situation. Moland still gives his audience films we remember!

A Somewhat Gentle Man (2010)

Norwegians, even more than Swedes or Danes (at least in their films) seem to be glum, dour sorts. And our leading man, a big Norseman (played by Swedish great Stellan Skarsgard) just out of jail after serving 12 years for murder, is unhappy. But now, getting a job as a mechanic and living in the basement of the mechanic's wife, he is surrounded by such an odd assortment of regular people, his colorfully mundane struggle to survive and get a little along the way is hilarious and moving.

It wouldn't be helpful to say exactly what happens--that he crosses up two women, that he tries to reunite with his son who's expecting a baby, that he has to "settle accounts" with some thugs who won't leave him alone. It's how these things happen, and who plays the characters, that makes this film really great fun. And expert fun. This is a tale well told, comic, patient, clever. The plot gets interwoven and impossible in a Shakespearean way (brought to a high pitch of plausible improbability by the delivery scene, you'll see), and so everything is tightly controlled. Even the music is a parody of itself, somehow, a light and spasmodic jazz funk score that helps make clear all of this is a little bit in fun, even when it gets awful in a couple parts.

The characters here are unpretty types, either homely or ravaged or just so maladjusted we see only their peculiarities. And that's a lot of the charm. There's no artificial glitz, no idealizing characters, no beauty on the side drawing the main character from the reality around him. You grow to identify with the people for who they are, and even though there is a comic airiness throughout, these people become very real, too. It's a delightful result, and I don't use the word delightful much any more. Don't miss it.

This is definitely a different kind of movie. At first I couldn't quite swallow it. Like one of those wired Frennch delicacies that taste so unexpectedly you can't decide whether to chew on or drop them out of your mouth. Yet, if you resist a bit further for your mouth and brain to accommodate, you find that the experience was one so rich and subtle it lingers on your senses for days.

There's not the least bit of glamor or pretence in this movie. The plot seem to develop rather too slowly, the dialogues do not have the sparkle which tingles the intellect and makes you feel smarter, the people are not handsome but slightly old, worn out, ordinary people and the sex scenes are stripped of magic, eroticism and, well, desire. Nevertheless, behind it all there's this gentleness, humour and a kind of sadness almost heartbreaking. Each character has a history of abandonment, abuse, absence of love behind them, which sort of handicaps the way they connect to other people, makes their words and gestures rather abrupt, apparently lacking emotion. And there's this "gentle man", a former cold blooded murderer, who can see their despondency and incidentally tries to give them a bit of what they need. In doing so, he attempts to shut a door on his bleak past. And it's not because he wants to be a new better man, but because he can no longer be the man that he was. He simply needs to be the father and the lover he was refused for many years, he needs to have an ordinary life. "Spring is coming", his reply at the end of the movie, and the small contemplative smile it's a welcome addressed to a life of better choices and the relief after just killing the last "shadow" of his past. Now I can tell no more without spoiling the movie, but I highly recommend it. Also, I recommend that you be patient. Even if you can't enjoy it from the very first, see it through. It will worth your while. I give this movie a 9 out of 10.

" A Somewhat Gentle Man", is quite a surprise. When I scanned the description of the movie, I expected a crime flick. My mistake for not paying proper attention to detail. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this quirky comedy very much. My experience with the Norwegian comedy is hopelessly limited, but if this movie is typical of it, I wouldn't mind seeing more.The humor swerves between deadpan and grotesque with an amazing ease.The characters are people that life didn't pat on the back. They are beaten, bitter or just plain depressed. The jokes are smart and original, and the actors are not clowning, but playing very serious. That's the reason, probably, that I found this strange little flick so fresh and funny.

This is first of all a genuinely interesting character study with an absolutely terrific performance by Stellan Skarsgard as a newly-released convict. It is also consistently funny, and often hilariously so (it may have the three funniest sex scenes in recent cinema history). The humor is understated and dark, but it is always an outgrowth of the characters.

If it has any flaws, it's that the third act features an unlikely coincidence and a moment of predictable overt sentimentality which seemed a bit out of place (but which was nevertheless tremendously effective). But by that point I thought the movie had earned the right to spring a coincidence on us and then go for the heartstrings.

There's a bit of Pulp Fiction in the dialogue, but if I had to name a single movie it most resembled, it would be In Bruges, but without the violence. This was barely released in the U.S., but I think it was one of the 50 best movies of 2011, and one of the 15 best foreign films. If you're a true movie buff, see it! My grades: 80 / A-.