"Tunnelen" or "The Tunnel" is a Norwegian short film from 2016 written and directed by André Øvredal, who is known for Troll Hunter, but also other films he made in recent years, so a bit surprising to see in-between not just a short film he made, but also one he made back in his home Norway. Anyway, so I cannot say too much about the cast. I think they did fine. This film is based on a short story by Alice Glaser and runs for 12 minutes approximately, plus another 2.5 minutes closing credits. We have a family of four, mother father, daughter and son, sitting in a car in a strange tunnel and it is never really sure if there is something sinister going on why nothing is moving or of it is just that traffic sucks. For you to decide, although the ending somewhat gives a bit of an explanation. The shot I liked the most from this movie was when all the cars look like toy cars on some kind of production line. So most of the action takes place inside the car from what we see, but sometimes there are also shots to the outside where we see the whole situation or also the boy flirting with a girl in another car and they write thingeys on the glass. So we know not everybody in the other cars is dead or so. Dialogue is not too frequent or essential, so actually you can watch this little movie also if you don't speak Norwegian and cannot find a set of subtitles. It is pretty easy to do so though, so why not go for it. However, I am not sure if I really liked what I saw. The atmospheric tougch was okay, also with the music, but maybe it did come a bit short for me in terms of the claustrophobic element. So overall, a close call, but as the genre is also not among my very favorites, I will give this film a subjective thumbs-down. I liked Øvredal's full feature film works more for sure. Still I wonder if he maybe one day turns this one into a full feature movie explaining some of the background and including the same or different actors. I think it could work given the premise here because it feels more like a lengthy scene out of a movie than really a film on its own. My suggestion is to skip the watch nonetheless.
Review of Tunnelen
