Force Majeure (15.)
Directed by Ruben Ostlund.
Starring Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius and Brady Corbett. Swedish with subtitles. 120 mins
Force Majeure is a cold, callous dissection of human frailty that will lift your spirits and send you floating out of the cinema on a breeze of happiness. Its rigorous precision is reminiscent of evil art house genius Michael Haneke, but it combines this with a more populist Talking Point hook – a what-would-you-do-in-that-situation issue that you can get into on the journey home or in the bar afterward. And it makes you laugh, laugh more than is generally considered seemly at subtitled films.
Workaholic Tomas is on a holiday of penitence, fives days in a French ski resort with his family. Early on the family are caught up in a minor natural disaster. For a few brief seconds it seems like they are in a life or death situation and in those few brief seconds Tomas manages to let himself down rather badly. The rest of the holiday is taken up with him trying to reconcile himself and his actions with his wife.
The subject is the perennial thin veneer of civilization and how quickly that can crack. Their ski resort has all the modern amenities, is a safe and comforting environment yet is a place teetering on the edge of terror: cable cars grinding perilously up the slopes, the brutal extremities of the landscape and explosions going off all over the mountains at night. The film has a fairly thin veneer of civility: its humour is very cruel but who doesn't enjoy watching smug families who go on skiing holidays get put through the grinder a little?*
Ostlund has a terrific eye. It's not just that many of the scenes are beautifully filmed but perfectly framed too. (Just a few scenes suffered from some jarring C.G.I.) Often the positioning of the camera is just so perfect, you might have a little chuckle of appreciations (if you get off on that kind of thing.) Ostlund's previous film Involuntary, a multi stranded film about bullying was a film worth seeing just for his inventive camera angles, including one of a group of men chatting, shown entirely through their reflection in a car door. There his technique was impressive but showy, it dwarfed the material; here it is seamless. Superficially the drama is conventional with characters expressing their feelings in dialogue scene but underneath almost everything is communicated visually. This is real film making.
*smug families who go on skiing holidays, obviously.
Force Majeure (15.)
Directed by Ruben Ostlund.
Starring Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius and Brady Corbett. Swedish with subtitles. 120 mins
Force Majeure is a cold, callous dissection of human frailty that will lift your spirits and send you floating out of the cinema on a breeze of happiness. Its rigorous precision is reminiscent of evil art house genius Michael Haneke, but it combines this with a more populist Talking Point hook – a what-would-you-do-in-that-situation issue that you can get into on the journey home or in the bar afterward. And it makes you laugh, laugh more than is generally considered seemly at subtitled films.
Workaholic Tomas is on a holiday of penitence, fives days in a French ski resort with his family. Early on the family are caught up in a minor natural disaster. For a few brief seconds it seems like they are in a life or death situation and in those few brief seconds Tomas manages to let himself down rather badly. The rest of the holiday is taken up with him trying to reconcile himself and his actions with his wife.
The subject is the perennial thin veneer of civilization and how quickly that can crack. Their ski resort has all the modern amenities, is a safe and comforting environment yet is a place teetering on the edge of terror: cable cars grinding perilously up the slopes, the brutal extremities of the landscape and explosions going off all over the mountains at night. The film has a fairly thin veneer of civility: its humour is very cruel but who doesn't enjoy watching smug families who go on skiing holidays get put through the grinder a little?*
Ostlund has a terrific eye. It's not just that many of the scenes are beautifully filmed but perfectly framed too. (Just a few scenes suffered from some jarring C.G.I.) Often the positioning of the camera is just so perfect, you might have a little chuckle of appreciations (if you get off on that kind of thing.) Ostlund's previous film Involuntary, a multi stranded film about bullying was a film worth seeing just for his inventive camera angles, including one of a group of men chatting, shown entirely through their reflection in a car door. There his technique was impressive but showy, it dwarfed the material; here it is seamless. Superficially the drama is conventional with characters expressing their feelings in dialogue scene but underneath almost everything is communicated visually. This is real film making.
*smug families who go on skiing holidays, obviously.
