Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Oslo, August 31st

AFI FEST Oslo, August 31st is a portrait of a man and a city, both teeming with memory and remorse. It finds a certain beauty in the way this man’s sadness is of a piece with the entire emotional history of Norway’s capital, whose citizens’ spoken memories at times serve as ruminative narration. We don’t often know to whom the bittersweet recollections belong, but it’s clear that they’re not our protagonist’s. Anders is adrift, and at film’s beginning it seems he isn’t coming back from wherever he’s headed. Someone will reach out, he’ll turn away. This is a man who can’t help but move toward self-destruction, and the relative slowness of his decline only makes him further gone. Co-writer/director Joachim Trier implies that it isn’t a lack but rather an abundance of knowledge as to how things are that makes his lead character so world-weary; observing others—in a cafe, on the street—is often the closest Anders comes to connecting with anybody. A walk he takes through a nearby park is set to snippets of other people’s conversations, as though he either doesn’t have any of his own to recall or what memories he does have aren’t worth recalling.

Oslo itself—not only the buildings and streets but the sum of its people—is as much a character as Anders; the shared dreams and disappointments of these people weigh almost as heavily on his mind as do his own. Anders is sensitive not just in the emotional sense but also in how exceptionally attuned he is to the needs and wants of those around him—a result of these constant observations, no doubt, but also an effective means of connecting setting and character. What Anders overhears tends to be either nostalgic or depressing, but it’s sometimes quite funny: “I saw Rambo III the other day and it’s actually damn good.” Oslo, August 31st has an ear for dialogue and an eye for natural movement; it employs a documentary-like approach that uses little but communicates much.

For as well as Anders knows others, Trier knows Anders better. The film so gracefully replicates its protagonist’s drifting moods (detached, absorbed, out of it) that its full emotional weight doesn’t immediately seem as heavy as it is. That comes later, by which time it’s too late to do anything but recall Anders teetering on a ledge, wondering whether he has it in him to stop himself from going over.

by Michael Nordine   on 09 Nov 2011 7:14 PM   Source: 35mm print