La Ceinture d'Orion

I just watched this movie again for the first time since when it was made, 28 years ago. It's a pretty powerful movie experience in it's genre. In fact, it's one of the best movies I've watched in a long time - a lucky rediscovery.

A compelling story about a ragged freight boat crew, who get tangled up in something sinister. Its cold war era story is properly gritty and believable, there's nothing artificial or glorified about it. It's exciting, and it also has a quite sad side.

The acting is good. The locations are beautiful. The music is unsettling at times. If you're a movie lover and have missed this one, it's time to sit down and discover a hidden gem.

(This review is for the Norwegian version - I've not seen the English version)

Orions Belte is an exciting thriller from the cold-war period. The actors are good, and the plot is great. The locations is also very important in this movie, and that is something which really creates a realistic atmosphere for the film. Great Norwegian movie (one of the few) from the 80's.

Orions Belte

I bought the 2-disk special edition DVD of this 1985 Norwegian movie mainly because it was filmed in and around Svalbard, site of the northernmost settlements in the world. For this alone it was well worth the price. Not only does the movie show more of the natural beauty of Svalbard than any of the many documentaries I have seen, with lingering perspectives from land, sea, and air, it also shows something that nature documentaries leave out: the gritty life in the Norwegian and Russian coal-mining towns of Svalbard, before the collapse of the Soviet Union changed everything in the Arctic (not to mention the rest of the world).

But Orions Belte also turned out to be an excellent dramatic movie, with the story making full use of its unique location. The direction and acting are so good that I forgot it was a drama, until about halfway through, taking it as a slice-of-life documentary. All the characters look and act as if they belong in the Arctic, and their misadventures are much more like the many firsthand narratives I have read about the real North, than any of the tarted up novels that purport to be set there. The film won the Norwegian Academy Award for best film of the year, and several review sites call it the best Norwegian film ever -- not that it would have had a huge amount of competition. But it really is a good and realistic action movie.

Orions Belte was a joint British - Norwegian production, and Norwegian and English language versions were filmed simultaneously. Both versions are included on disk 1, and both include optional subtitles. Disk 2 includes an excellent 'making-of' documentary, a clip of the Norwegian Academy Awards presentation, and several other brief features. These are only in Norwegian, without subtitles (except a few comments in English by the British producer), but are easy enough to follow, despite this. Plus these short features include even more documentary footage of Svalbard, which needs no narration.

One of the short features on disk 2 details the creation of this 20th anniversary DVD, which involved first a complete frame-by frame restoration of the film (4:3 aspect ratio), followed by digitization, and then color-grading. All this work paid off, as the look and color of the whole movie is terrific, with even the subtle colors of arctic ice rendered accurately. There is only one brief interior scene where the highlights were too far gone to be restored.

This movie was never released in the USA, as far as I can tell, and it does not seem to have gotten much traction in Britain. Even though the English language version is included on this 2-disk PAL Region-2 set, I could not find it for sale on any British websites. Two Norwegian sites offer it for sale, but neither will ship overseas. Happily an Amazon US Marketplace seller who specializes in obscure European movies does stock it, and he ships DVDs quickly at US postage rates (search Amazon for the Norwegian spelling, Orions Belte). You will need a region-free DVD player to view this movie anywhere outside of Europe. Amazon does not sell these, but several eBay sellers do.

Rated 8/10 (comparable to The Bourne Identity).

(This review is for the Norwegian version of the film.)

This bold thriller made in 1985 surpassed every expectation I had for it, and the great cinematography by Harald Gunnar Paalgard had a big part in that. If your movie takes place in Svalbard, an all around beautiful place, the movie should look damn good, and Orions belte establishes that from the first minute and keeps it going, throughout scenes taking place in and out of Svalbard.

The actors are really good, the characters are a bit cliché but this didn't bother me at all since the movie is very intense once it starts to get going.

And for someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge about Cold War-era Norway, the dialogue regarding Cold War was very informative, but the constant exposition throughout the first half hour could bore a viewer who knows Norway's history well.

The script doesn't shy away from the 'cold' realism as well, and the movie manages to subvert expectations because of it. Of course, if you can't empathize with the main characters, you can start guessing what happens next but if you are hooked, you'll be surprised in every way.

Action scenes in Orions belte are very well directed as well, much better than its Hollywood counterparts.

This movie is a must-watch if you can handle the slow first half hour and some cliché character traits.

Well, this is a great movie, why? It's set on Svalbard, in an era where the mining company Store Norske still where on top. Showing how 3 men with a boat took advantage of the tourists that came along with their dumbness. Then they discovered something they shouldnt have. The political meaning between 2 nations, set in a very stratetic place on earth, are given the viewer in a clever way. The atmosphere from Longyearbyen, and the shots from the Huset, are so great, if you know about it's history, or have been there yourself.

The story itself are showing one possible way the norwegian government would try and hide away any possible confrontation with a big bear as the soviet nation in 1985 were. Very believable, sadly enough. The story goes along in a very good pace, and there are plenty of action. Furthermore the story goes on to Oslo, where some new shots of some very known places are shown, alongside a carneval in the middle of Karl Johan street.

A gem to be taken care of for future generations.