I just watched a Swedish sub-titled film called "Force Majeure." (BTW, an acquaintance tells me the film is titled "Snow Therapy" in France) The crazy thing is that it's listed on IMDb as a comedy-drama. I get the drama part. And yeah, if you like to laugh at other people's relationship problems you might get a few chuckles out of it.
Uncomfortable moments are always funny. That would be all though; it's not laughing out loud funny. You've have to be borderline psychotic to double over in laughter at the unraveling relationship of Ebba and her husband Tomas.
The style of "Force Majeure" is minimalist, objective, and realistic. Characters don't make speeches that move the plot. Communication between Ebba and Tomas is broken, often interrupted as life with children is. There are abrupt and jarring jumps between scenes alternating between majestic mountains and the daily round of necessary human activity.
You see much brushing of teeth. You see a little boy's difficulty in taking a pee after peeling off layers of winter clothing. You see a mom squatting in a grove of fir trees on the mountain doing the same. You see the family sleeping four abed, the children irritable and sensitive to their parents' anxieties. Yeah, and there's a lot of snow. In fact, there are constant explosions reverberating in the night as the caretakers detonate dynamite to lesson the chance of avalanches.
Okay so the story is about a married couple on vocation at a chic ski resort in the Alps. They have two beautiful blonde children, a boy maybe six, a girl maybe eight. Parents are attractive with middle-class sensibilities and interests. After a day of skiing, they're at a restaurant overlooking the mountain. Suddenly, and with muffled dynamite blasts in the distance, a mountain of snow begins rolling down the mountain toward the outdoor restaurant where people are dining and drinking.
The panic is comprehensible your next thought it is that film is too predictable. It's not, though. The avalanche stops at the resort's edge. Even so, the diners are lost in a snowy fog, shepherding their children, and in Ebba's case looking for her husband.
That introduces the plot. With this clear and present danger of avalanche, the husband has fled, leaving the wife to shelter the children. Ebba first takes it in stride, doesn't make a big deal of it. Yet it irks her. Until this wall of snow threatened to crush them, she felt safe, safe with her handsome charming husband.
Ebba's thinking the male should be a protector of the species. It's a kind of unwritten law which goes all the way back to the cave man era. However, now she's thinking her husband is a coward. 'Wow I have two kids with this man and he ran when the snow came down.' Can she ever feel safe with him?
I think all couples of longstanding relationships have experienced what comes next. You're in the company of friends, maybe having dinner together, a few drinks at the local pub, a coffee klatsch. Something or other. Your wife/partner/sig-other/whatever is of course telling the story of the near crushing avalanche. And horror of horrors, she tells the guest how you ran off like a coward and left her with the children. She's telling it in a matter-of-fact way, not at all vindictive, with a look of mild disappointment.
But you're a man, see, and men are supposed to take care of women and children. So the husband takes issue. He tells the story in a different way. Ebba says 'no it wasn't that way.' It goes on. The guests become uncomfortable in the extreme. They try to change the subject but neither Ebba nor her husband Tomas will let it alone.
I point out this happens with a thoroughly modern couple, not a couple of stranded Neanderthals from the Ice Age. Buried, repressed, mocked or scorned, the male ego is built on the bedrock of masculinity and, in the eyes of others, is expected.
I hope I didn't say too much. It's a film worth watching.
Uncomfortable moments are always funny. That would be all though; it's not laughing out loud funny. You've have to be borderline psychotic to double over in laughter at the unraveling relationship of Ebba and her husband Tomas.
The style of "Force Majeure" is minimalist, objective, and realistic. Characters don't make speeches that move the plot. Communication between Ebba and Tomas is broken, often interrupted as life with children is. There are abrupt and jarring jumps between scenes alternating between majestic mountains and the daily round of necessary human activity.
You see much brushing of teeth. You see a little boy's difficulty in taking a pee after peeling off layers of winter clothing. You see a mom squatting in a grove of fir trees on the mountain doing the same. You see the family sleeping four abed, the children irritable and sensitive to their parents' anxieties. Yeah, and there's a lot of snow. In fact, there are constant explosions reverberating in the night as the caretakers detonate dynamite to lesson the chance of avalanches.
Okay so the story is about a married couple on vocation at a chic ski resort in the Alps. They have two beautiful blonde children, a boy maybe six, a girl maybe eight. Parents are attractive with middle-class sensibilities and interests. After a day of skiing, they're at a restaurant overlooking the mountain. Suddenly, and with muffled dynamite blasts in the distance, a mountain of snow begins rolling down the mountain toward the outdoor restaurant where people are dining and drinking.
The panic is comprehensible your next thought it is that film is too predictable. It's not, though. The avalanche stops at the resort's edge. Even so, the diners are lost in a snowy fog, shepherding their children, and in Ebba's case looking for her husband.
That introduces the plot. With this clear and present danger of avalanche, the husband has fled, leaving the wife to shelter the children. Ebba first takes it in stride, doesn't make a big deal of it. Yet it irks her. Until this wall of snow threatened to crush them, she felt safe, safe with her handsome charming husband.
Ebba's thinking the male should be a protector of the species. It's a kind of unwritten law which goes all the way back to the cave man era. However, now she's thinking her husband is a coward. 'Wow I have two kids with this man and he ran when the snow came down.' Can she ever feel safe with him?
I think all couples of longstanding relationships have experienced what comes next. You're in the company of friends, maybe having dinner together, a few drinks at the local pub, a coffee klatsch. Something or other. Your wife/partner/sig-other/whatever is of course telling the story of the near crushing avalanche. And horror of horrors, she tells the guest how you ran off like a coward and left her with the children. She's telling it in a matter-of-fact way, not at all vindictive, with a look of mild disappointment.
But you're a man, see, and men are supposed to take care of women and children. So the husband takes issue. He tells the story in a different way. Ebba says 'no it wasn't that way.' It goes on. The guests become uncomfortable in the extreme. They try to change the subject but neither Ebba nor her husband Tomas will let it alone.
I point out this happens with a thoroughly modern couple, not a couple of stranded Neanderthals from the Ice Age. Buried, repressed, mocked or scorned, the male ego is built on the bedrock of masculinity and, in the eyes of others, is expected.
I hope I didn't say too much. It's a film worth watching.
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