Scandinavian Film Fest 2011: Review 'The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme Mannen)'

Let me first start off by saying that this is my own personal Scandinavian film fest, not any official fest, mostly because it takes place in my bedroom in Michigan. I decided that, between trying to find something to watch on TV and what was already in my Netflix queue and having zero luck, I would turn to Scandinavia, a place I want to visit but can't afford. I'm also learning Swedish for personal growth and for fun so I figured that a virtual trip to the Nordic lands via cinema was a good, cheap vacation.

I've already written about 'Troubled Water (DeUsynlige)', a wonderful drama from Norway on a previous day and have since watched about three more movies. The film I am going to write about this evening I watched two nights ago called 'The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme Mannen)' and hails from Norway as well. Released in 2006, this film is a very Kafka-esque, surreal "nightmare" of a film, and what I mean by that comes in later, that is partly black comedy and part social commentary and stars Trond Fausa Aurvaag and Petronella Barker. I have mixed feelings about this movie, I can't decide whether I liked it or not.

The movie opens with a man, named Andreas, standing on a subway platform staring into the camera. He looks to the side and sees a couple sucking face, quite literally sucking face. It's one of the most awkward and weird things to witness in the first few minutes of a film and it all makes sense later in the film. The man then "jumps" into the path of the passing train. The next shot he is in a bus being driven out to the middle of nowhere where a man greets him at an abandoned gas station and takes him to "the city" to be introduced to his new life. He is given an apartment, a job and everyone is seemingly very nice and pleasant. The creepy-factor from everyone is really tipping the meter through the whole film. As he goes about his mundane, boring job and home life of eating tasteless food and drinking alcohol that never makes a person drunk he encounters a man in the bathroom of a local bar who starts going on about how he can never get drunk and how he can't taste anything before Andreas sees him leave the bar and follows him to a building where a basement light comes on and music plays. He can't get this man out of his head, as he too has noticed that booze doesn't make you drunk, food has no taste, nothing has a smell and conversations are quite bland, but he never sees the man again.

During this time he meets a woman at a work dinner, begins to date her, they have boring, feeling-less sex several times while he moves in with her and begins renovations at their new home. He's in love, or so he seems until he meets another woman that he works with and tests out whether his current relationship will fall apart when he starts hanging around a new woman that he eventually falls in love with. At this point the plot treads into 'spoiler' territory so I'll stop writing down the whole story, but I will say that the opening shots in the subway train tunnel come in to being soon enough.

The movie has a wonderful, weird, creepy atmosphere that is played out very well with very dark rooms and muted colors in most places but the subway tunnel and you genuinely get the feeling of a feeling-less boring society that seems to just be peachy and perfect on the surface; a place where everyone just goes along with what they are given and learns to like it, but also a place that some people find weird and not satisfying. Andreas is one of those people.

I wish that I could say that I liked, or disliked, this movie one way or another, but I just don't know. I liked that acting, I liked the music, I liked the pace and atmosphere. What I didn't like was the ultimate ending and the fact that if you are going to go weird Kafka-esque on the audience, you go balls to the walls crazy-weird. Go David Lynch Mulholland Drive/Lost Highway-I've seen this movie 12 billion times and don't know what's going on-crazy. This movie dipped its toe in surreal weirdness and then realized it was a tad too chilly and yanked it right out, but not before throwing the creepy atmosphere towel into the deep end, and that, along with the acting, may be its one saving grace.

Overall, I definitely think it's worth a watch because of the creepiness it does have and because of the acting and well-shot scenes and I'd be interested to hear some other feedback as to how it was received in your eyes and brains.

I will throw out a warning that if you watch on Netflix streaming, the aspect ratio is not correct. It is far too letterboxed and the whole movie seems weirdly stretched. It isn't just part of the film, it really is messed up on Netflix.

'Splice'

Mamma like! This is something I heard about awhile ago and I'm glad it looks so creepy and weird and wrong!

Basically, some scientists cloned a human with something else and since it's illegal to clone humans and this isn't technically human, it's A-OK! Unfortunately the thing is growing rapidly and appears to be killing everything. It's also some kind of weird girl-gargoyle thingy. Ick and awesome!



Here's a clip!

'Terribly Happy' (Frygtelig lykkelig)

What is one thing I love in the cinematic world? If you said David Lynch, you would be correct. Any movie that gives mention to being like a Lynch movie and is in a foreign language has my attention immediately. Basically the main character, a disgraced marshal, gets sent to this creepy little town filled with some weirdos. They use the local bog to cover up their dirty little secrets and he gets tangled up with a married woman who is beaten by her husband.

The first trailer looks like someone gets killed? I really don't know. But the second trailer just makes the whole movie looks incredibly weird so I can't wait to see it.

Trailer 1:


Trailer 2:


Clip:

Doctor Who 'Silence in the Library' and 'Forest of the Dead'

I started watching Doctor Who about a month or so ago after watching 'Planet of the Dead' one evening on BBC America and I completely fell in love with it. It's weird because I LOVE Torchwood and never got into Doctor Who and now David Tennant is through with his run. And I can't sing the praises of David Tennant enough. He's charming as all get out on Doctor Who, but he's incredibly charming in real life. To quote him regarding Billie Piper, he's "buttered many parnsips" as far as I'm concerned. Does that even make sense? I don't care, he's awesome. So I'm sad because I'm watching episodes with him and it's the end, when the show comes back he won't be on it. I also plan on covering the best episodes of the entire series after I'm completely through

Anyway, on to what this post is originally for, the show and not gushing over David Tennant. I arrived at the season 4 episodes 'Silence in the Library' and 'Forest of the Dead' last night and today. And my stars, these two are two of the best episodes I've ever seen. There may be spoilers coming, so...

In the very beginning, pre-titles, we see a little girl in a library who is crying about people trying to get into her library and as the doors bust open we see the Doctor and Donna.

The Doctor and Donna (I love Catherine Tate on this show, by the way, she is so funny) arrive on a planet that is a giant library. There is no one else on the planet, no one. But there is a giant computer at the center of the planet and it shows that there are 1 million million lifeforms on the planet and 4,000 some-odd number of people saved. This intrigues the Doctor and Donna and soon they come across a statue with a living face (they are a type of computer-human interface device for the planet/library) that tells them that there is one message to be shared. The message says that they have to run, that something is coming and to run. So they run. And end up finding out that the shadows are what needs to be feared.

But this episode isn't that simple. There is another storyline weaved throughout and that is what makes this episode so incredibly awesome. As the Doctor and Donna are trying to figure out how to get out of the room they are in, the doors open and 5 people come busting in. One of the women, River, says that she knows the Doctor but he clearly doesn't remember her. She says she knows so much about him. She even has a sonic screwdriver that he gave her, but he doesn't get why he would have given her his screwdriver. She tells him that that is a spoiler.

As they are all now trying to figure out how to get out of the room, they find out that the shadows are eating people and the Doctor tells them that they are called Vashta Narada and they live in the shadows and take people. They are on every planet, but live in the forests and usually don't cause mass harm. You can see them in the dust in the sunshine. The Vashta Narada start killing the people and they find out that the reason they are on this planet is that they came from here. When further questioned the Doctor finds out that they weren't brought here, and weren't already here, but were in fact in the paper that the books were made from. The entire library is their forest and they want it back and the people are their meat. The Doctor sends Donna off to the TARDIS, but on the way she gets "saved".

Donna appears in this other world where a mysterious man, Dr. Moon (the kick-ass Colin Salmon, who I think should be a future Bond), talks to her at CAL (a hospital it is assumed) and tells her, even though she seems to forget things and keeps talking about a Doctor and a library, that she is recovering well. She meets a man who stutters, they date, get married and have children all within seconds. Later she gets a letter from a woman to meet her the next day and they meet in the park. The woman tells her that it is all fake and that all the children are the same; it's all fake.

Meanwhile, the Doctor finds out the the computer at the middle of the planet had literally "saved" everyone to the hard drive when the Vashta Narada came. It had nowhere to take them so that's where it put them. But, the little girl, who keeps hearing things and seeing the Doctor and Donna on the TV, throws her remote to the ground causing an alarm to go off in the library setting the computer self-destruct countdown on. The Doctor decides that if he can get the computer to shut down and reboot, he can get everyone out. But he has to hook himself up to free the computer's memory. Oh yeah, the computer IS the little girl. She's hooked up to it. Dr. Moon is the fake moon set up to monitor the library and protect it. So yeah, anyway, River knocks the Doctor out and hooks herself up. She handcuffs the Doctor and when he wakes he asks her who she is and how she knew his name (she whispered something to him earlier to prove that she can be trusted) because there is only one person and reason why someone would know that. She hooks herself up and saves everyone, killing herself in the process.

In the end the Doctor, who questioned why he would give someone his screwdriver and realizes that he did it in the future to save her now. Another paradox and I love it!

This episode is presumably setting up some future goings-on since River mentions that he shows up at her doorway with a new haircut and suit. No one spoil it for me if you've already seen anything related to this. She knows his name and knows him intimately in the future and that is intriguing. The episode is creepy, scary, sad, heart-wrenching and funny. Stephen Moffet is really one of their best writers and I look forward to him being at the helm of Doctor Who.

Here's a clip from the episode.

'Re-Wire' trailer

"This machine will re-wire you. Make you normal" I bet it doesn't make him normal. Not normal at all. In fact, I bet shit starts to fall apart and, guessing by the growl at the end, maybe creates more fear than it takes away.

Thanks io9.com for pointing me at these things today!

Re-Wire (2009) Trailer from David Fernandes on Vimeo.

'Alma' animated short is CREEEEPY!

Think dolls come to life and wander around at night? Scared of being in a toy store at night by yourself? Then this is the animated short for you!

Watch as cute little Alma encounters a store with a doll that looks just like her. And then see what happens to her! It's creepy, original and awesome and all in a few minutes.

It's the perfect treat to watch after getting all pissed off from watching 'Dogs vs. Cats'.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

New 'The Road' clips

If you've read the book, you know what happens and that, like most of his books, it isn't that happy of a story. After struggling to get released the movie is finally coming out sometime this month. I think.

'The Road' tells the story of a man and his son who are struggling to survive and make it to the coast after an unknown disaster has devastated at least the United States. Check out the five new clips, they cover the feel of the book pretty well and the movie also includes Guy Pearce. I don't know who he plays exactly, but I'm glad he's in the movie. Garett Dillahunt plays one of the cannibalistic hillbillies and he is seriously underrated as an actor.

New Pandorum Trailer

This is another movie I am unsure of. One the one hand it looks "Event Horizon"-y and cool. It seems to have great production design and looks like it's shot very well. But then, I read the description which seems to go from a story about two crew members aboard a ship who wake up to find all the other crew members missing to a Road Warrior/The Descent horror flick. That could go either way when the film actually comes out. Judging the way movies have been lately I am guessing it might turn out bad. Let's hope I am wrong.