Review of Oslo, August 31st (2011) by Cigs J — 27 Nov 2016

Norwegian language with subtitles.

Director: Joachim Trier.

A fairly bleak Cinema Verite art film. It tells the story of a perhaps overly-intelligent 34 year old young man Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie)who has lost his purpose - he sees no point in living. His back story is that he was an addict for five years - he takes anything to avoid his existential angst, ecstasy, heroin, alcohol and so on. So it begins at a rehab clinic where we see him walking into a lake with a weighted rock so he can drown himself, but that is just too hard to endure and he gets out.

He has a day out of the clinic to attend a job interview at an intellectual magazine, so the film is about his journey through that single day. First he meets up with an old friend and his partner and they discuss life in general. The friend is a lecturer but is not particularly happy with his life - he has a beautiful wife and baby but they don't talk or socialize or even have sex, they spend it playing an online game where the wife delights in humiliating opponents.

It's also apparent that he was successful with women, and part of his evening is spent at a party where he meets a pretty young woman who is obviously attracted to him, he is politely charming but this does not lift his spirits. There is an interesting scene in a café where he listens in on people's conversations and how banal it all is. One group of teenage girls mordantly giggle at how a singer who had blown off his head will have problems singing again.

With all this bleak ennui it should not be a surprise as to how it ends. But as I got up, I said to myself - life is what you make it. It's up to you to enjoy it - or not.