Dan Slevin is pleased to see Scandinavian films given a cinema spotlight.
Photo: Scandi Film Festival
One of the regular highlights of cinemagoing in the before-times were the prevalence of regionally focused film festivals. I myself produced a Latin American Film Festival back in the day, and there have been at some time Middle Eastern (that festival was known as the Date Palm), African, Polish, Italian and French festivals touring the country.
Imagine my surprise, then, when the Scandi Film Festival programme dropped into my lap to discover that this was the first time that cinematically rich corner of the world had been canvassed this way. Scandinavian films are often very popular box office here in New Zealand and we share many similar regional characteristics. Clearly, money has been left on the table until now.
I was particularly interested in this festival as I once spent two days in Copenhagen and 10 days in Sweden a few years ago so, in the same spirit in which the six days I spent in New York City means I "own" Taxi Driver, I feel a strong affinity with these films.
The organisers very kindly made some previews available (not the random selection I usually go for but because of my cinema ennui I actually chose films I thought I would like) and I share my impressions with you here.
Diana’s Wedding (Diana’s Bryllup) is a Norwegian picture that could be a relocation of Philip Larkin’s famous poem This Be The Verse, the one that starts "They f--k you, your mum and dad/They do not mean to but they do". The film starts as young lovers Liv (Marie Blokhus) and Terje (Pål Sverre Hagen) celebrate their nuptials on the same day that Charles and Diana are getting married across the sea at St Paul’s Cathedral.
It turns out that there is an element of shotgun to this wedding as there is already a baby – named Diana after the about-to-be princess. In a series of chapters from 1981 to the present day, we follow Diana as she observes her parents obsession with themselves (and each other) override all other parental considerations. Large quantities of alcohol are consumed – by all the adult characters – and the two parents veer between scorn and forgiveness, never for one moment realising the damage they are doing.
The two leads do an excellent job of reminding us what they see in each other during those periods where love trumps hate and their long suffering next door neighbours Unni (Jannike Kruse) and Olav (Olav Waastad) eventually show us that their suffering has as much to do with each other as their rowdy friends.
This is the kind of film that I could see being made here – it’s a scale and subject we can handle – but the social details are deliciously specific to Norway.
Photo: Scandi Film Festival
The Burning Sea (Nordsjøen) is also Norwegian – but on a different scale entirely – and is an absolute cracker. You may already know that for more than 50 years, Norway has been one of the most oil rich countries in the world, hundreds of rigs in the North Sea producing millions of barrels of crude turning Norwegians into one of the most prosperous nations on Earth. For the last few years, they have been dedicated to using that oil wealth to try and transition away from fossil fuels – the subject of that great TV series Occupied – and The Burning Sea is a vivid and spectacular example of why that is a good thing.
Sofia (Kristine Kujath Thorp) is an expert developer and pilot of submersible robot technology for the inspection of rigs, wavering on whether to move in with her rig worker boyfriend Stian (Henrik Bjelland) and his adorable son Odin (Nils Elias Olsen). One day unexpected seismic subsidence damages one of the platforms and Sofia’s inspection reveals that the problem is much more widespread than just that one – the whole shelf is now unstable due to the number of holes that have been dug over the last few decades and vast amounts of oil are about to burst through the sea bed causing an environmental (and human) catastrophe.
While the authorities manage to evacuate all the workers, Stian stays behind to manually close one valve, and when Sofia learns this, of course, she has to go and get him. All the while the seismic situation is going from bad to worse.
It’s tense on every level – geophysical and interpersonal – and I was particularly happy to see a film where problems get solved by knowledge, professionalism and technology (notwithstanding that the problems had probably been caused by knowledge, professionalism and technology in the first place).
In the early parts of the film, there are some telling background details showing how Norway is transitioning away from fossil fuels – a huge coastal windfarm, an electric taxi – and the message is clear that it’s almost too late.
Photo: Scandi Film Festival
Finally, we visit Sweden and The Jonsson Gang (Se upp för Jönssonligan) – a reboot of a successful series of eight comedy films made between 1981 and 2000.
I’ve always thought you learn a lot more about a country from their commercial cinema rather than the arthouse and The Jonsson Gang paints a portrait of a very unusual culture indeed. If you’ve seen Ari Aster’s Midsommar, you’ll be surprised at the spin this film puts on that very Swedish holiday.
The Jonsson Gang are a bunch of ne’er-do-wells living in an abandoned typewriter factory in Stockholm. Led by career criminal “Sickan” (Henrik Dorsin), they stumble from botched heist to botched heist, never quite achieving their aims of wealth and fame or even basic subsistence.
Thanks to the discovery of the long lost King of Finland’s crown – Finland is unusual in that it has never had a royal family although there was a short-lived attempt to install one during World War I – they become embroiled in a plot to restore the rightful heir to the throne and in turn make themselves unimaginably rich. The history is utterly fanciful – to say the least – but it how it speaks to the relationship between Sweden and Finland is intriguing. Finland was a colony of Sweden from 1150 to 1809 and the Finns were not well treated.
Anyway, this is a broad comedy with lots of slapstick moments, physical gags and cross-border stereotypes. It’s all very amiable and the heist sequences, in particular, are inventive and amusing but the film itself got a bit flabby at about the 90-minute mark before stirring itself for a strong finish.
A little bit like Diana’s Wedding, The Jonsson Gang delights in Nordic provincialism, it’s nostalgic for a time when Swedish technology – like the typewriters made in that factory – was the best in the world. The exhibition showing at the Nordic Museum at the beginning of the film is “A History of Yarn”, and even though we all laughed out loud, we know that if we were in Stockholm when it was on we would probably go.
The 2022 Scandi Film Festival takes place simultaneously in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch from 21 April to 4 May.
