REVIEW: DVD Release: Kitchen Stories

Film: Kitchen Stories
Release date: 6th September 2004
Certificate: PG
Running time: 95 mins
Director: Bent Hamer
Starring: Joachim Calmeyer, Tomas Norström, Bjørn Floberg, Reine Brynolfsson, Sverre Anker Ousdal
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: ICA
Format: DVD
Country: Norway/Sweden

Despite failing to make the cut as Norway’s 2004 submission for the Oscars, Kitchen Stories received extremely favourable reviews in the press. It’s a quirky tale which subtly wrings laughs from the relationship between the Norwegians and the Swedes, and the gradually thawing of a frosty relationship between the observed and his observer.

In 1940s Sweden, a home economics company (with more than a hint of Ikea about it) is conducting experiments on how to layout a successful and efficient kitchen. Having established the best set-up for women, they turn their attention to single men, and send their team of observers to watch how Norwegian bachelors utilise their kitchen appliances.

Seated on Baywatch style high-chairs, these impartial observers neatly and methodically log all movements within the kitchen. They are forbidden from interfering with their subjects in any way, and sleep outside the host’s homes in bizarrely bubble-shaped mobile caravans.

When Folke (Tomas Nortström) is assigned to log the movements of loner Isak (Joachim Calmayer) things do not look promising. More than a little disgruntled by the Swedish interloper, the elderly Norwegian initially refuses to let him in. But just as Folke looks set to quit, their relationship begins to slowly develop – and eventually blossom…


To say that the opening of the film is eccentric would be an understatement. Scenes of domestic science have rarely been as strange as these: Scandinavian housewives test all manner of kitchen appliances whilst rigged up to medical equipment and breathing apparatus, all in an attempt to gauge their effectiveness. It’s played utterly deadpan and extremely effective for it – the gravity afforded the job of ‘observer’ is established from the outset, and emphasises the sense of the absurd from the start.

This sense of the strange is accentuated as a fleet of pastel green cars cross the Sweden/Norway border, each of them towing an egg-like caravan. These are the temporary homes of the Swedish observers – barely big enough to lay down in, yet strangely homely. It’s a good job, too, as the subject Folke is sent to observe is unwilling to let him into his house.

The film is almost wordless at this point, as a series of short scenes demonstrate the stubbornness of the irascible Isak. It’s practically a silent comedy, as Isak locks Folke out, repeatedly turns out the lights on him, and even drills a hole in his own ceiling so that he can observe the observer from the bedroom above. Not only that, but he begins cooking his meals upstairs on a camping stove.

The slow transformation in their relationship is so effective as to be almost invisible. Tentative conversations begin, small favours are done for one another, and gradually the two characters become friends. The sharing of food is key to this – having seen each character eat alone, the sharing of birthday cakes and booze is in sharp contrast to a poignant scene of Folke eating alone in his caravan.

A Swedish smorgasbord is also served up at one point, with both characters enjoying the pickled herring which Folke’s aunt has sent him. It’s symbolic of the burgeoning relationship and understanding of each others’ culture that they can share such a typically Swedish meal, but also serves as a plot device when Folke’s boss turns up, and comes close to realising that the policy of non-interference has been utterly disregarded. It’s a rare moment of tension in the film, and works all the better for Reine Brynolfsson’s performance as the slimy jobsworth Malmberg.

The danger that the pair will be ‘discovered’ becomes central to the plot, as a number of near scares ensue. Isak repeatedly falls asleep in Folke’s observation chair, and is caught there by Malmberg. As well as talking his way out of trouble, he makes excuses for Folke, and thereby saves their friendship. But, more importantly, he saves the Swede’s life in a tragicomic scene caused by the jealousy of Isak’s best friend Ralph.

Clearly this is a touching and tender tale of friendship – and the fact that the characters are in the twilight of their lives makes it more touching still. But beneath the surface, the film has more to say. There are a few mentions of World War II, and its influence on the themes of the film is obvious – initial animosity between the Swedes and Norwegians has roots in resentment over their roles in the conflict. Whilst Norway fought, Sweden remained neutral, and it’s very apparent that the role of the Swedish observer in the film is a comment on their non-violent stance – perhaps implying that it’s not possible to remain neutral after all.


Kitchen Stories is a wonderfully understated – yet affecting – movie. Its heart-warming tale of friendship is what holds it together, but there is a smorgasbord of weird and wonderful events and characters which lift it above many similar films: silver fillings which transmit radio signals; a room filled with pepper; caravans pulled by horses and mishaps with mousetraps. Strangely, it’s not really a story about kitchens at all – cooking takes place elsewhere, and the kitchen scissors are used to provide haircuts. But that’s entirely apt in this beguiling, charming film. RW

REVIEW: DVD Release: The Bothersome Man

Film: The Bothersome Man
Release date: 28th January 2008
Certificate: 15
Running time: 95 mins
Director: Jens Lien
Starring: Trond Fausa Aurvaag, Petronella Barker, Per Schaaning, Birgitte Larsen, Johannes Joner
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Fantasy
Studio: Drakes Avenue
Format: DVD
Country: Norway/Iceland

Urban dystopia has been a popular theme for filmmakers over the years. The Bothersome Man takes that tried, tested and clichéd formula and breathes new life into it by combining Orwellian menace with black humour - and more than a touch of Groundhog Day.

Following his apparent suicide, Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvaag) arrives in a nameless Scandinavian city where he is employed, provided with an apartment and falls effortlessly into a relationship. Unsurprisingly, he soon realises that something is amiss: life is too easy, food is tasteless, and children are conspicuous by their absence. Worse still, booze no longer gets people drunk.

Increasingly anxious, Andreas attempts to inject some excitement into his life by embarking on an affair, before realising that his only option is to escape the homogeneity of the city. Predictably, his efforts are thwarted and hope seems lost – until he befriends Hugo (Per Schaaning). Secreted in Hugo’s cellar is a crack in the wall from which beautiful smells and music are emitted – could this be the escape route Andreas is looking for?


The film opens in a railway station with a scene of the least romantic kissing ever committed to celluloid. It’s distinctly uncomfortable watching a male and female character joylessly chewing each other’s mouths off as the sounds of their lip-smacking are amplified. So uncomfortable, in fact, that Andreas – the tension building on his face – takes the only way out. From the platform, he throws himself under the wheels of an oncoming train. It’s testament to how effective the scene is that his extreme actions seem entirely appropriate.

The film is ambiguous about exactly where Andreas wakes up. Clearly, he ought to be dead. But following a silent bus ride, and a half-hearted welcoming committee, he finds himself in an apartment which apparently belongs to him. Utterly impersonal and decorated in muted colours, it sets the tone for the rest of the unnamed city in which he finds himself. After reporting to an equally nondescript office block, he is given a vague job description, a functional office, and left to get on with it.

So, where has our protagonist found himself? There is a certain Ikea-style blandness and coolness which marks the city out as Scandinavian, but that remains the only certainty. There’s easily enough evidence to suggest that Andreas is in heaven – life is simple, everyone is provided for, and everyone has a purpose. But by the same token, a world where everything is bland and ‘pre-packaged’, detached and emotionless could well be interpreted as hell. Maybe he’s in purgatory? Or perhaps the film is an attack on modern, homogenous living? It’s a strength that events can be interpreted on so many levels so effectively.

It requires an excellent performance from Trond Fausa Aurvag to carry such ambiguity so convincingly - and he really delivers. It’s a role which requires a range of acting talents and Aurvag pulls off slapstick, hangdog, understatement and wild-eyed delight with aplomb. He carries the movie from start to finish: there’s barely a moment without his enigmatic presence.

A number of scenes are key to establishing the other-worldliness of The Bothersome Man, all of which are stylishly underplayed. The first of these occurs as suspicions begin to grow in Andreas’ mind that things are not as they seem. He subsequently severs one of his own fingers in a paper-cutting machine. Spouting blood, his colleagues seem oblivious to the harm he’s done himself – despite the fact that the scarlet blood seeping from his wound is the most colourful thing in their office.

A wonderfully matter-of-fact montage explains the story of how Andreas comes to be in a serious relationship with a woman he barely knows. Over the course of a meal in a restaurant, he flirts clumsily. This leads to a series of short scenes of perfunctory sex and dull interior décor, which perfectly illustrate the alarming ease with which such events occur in the narrative.

Thoroughly disenchanted with his ‘off-the-shelf’ life, Andreas again seeks the answer in suicide. In a revisiting of the opening scene, we again see torturous kissing and a man throwing himself in front of an oncoming train. Only this time it makes more sense – and carries an air of déjà vu. How Andreas survives this attempt is more clear cut – although no more explicable.

Perhaps liberated (or reawakened), Andreas becomes determined to get to the bottom of his predicament. His focus becomes the mysterious Hugo – a man who wears black and white shoes, grumbles vociferously whilst defecating, and lives in a cave-like cellar adorned with a sea of light bulbs. It’s a beautifully understated set, and it becomes key to the denouement of the film, as Andreas and Hugo attempt to unravel the mystery which lurks behind the magical (and peculiarly vaginal looking) crack in the basement. Here, the film seems ever more absurdist (and calls to mind Being John Malkovich) as it speeds towards its inevitable conclusion.


The Bothersome Man is an excellent film. The visuals are stylish, the performances assured and the direction skilful. It draws the viewer into a world which is indefinably strange yet utterly compelling. It adds a new twist to an old and familiar story, weaving elements familiar to the audience with imaginative new ideas to create a film worthy of the many awards it has garnered - and worthy of wider notice than it has received. RW

REVIEW: DVD Release: The Man Who Loved Yngve

Film: The Man Who Loved Yngve
Release date: 20th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Stian Kristiansen
Starring: Rolf Kristian Larsen, Arthur Berning, Ida Elise Broch, Ole Christoffer Ertvaag, Jorgen Langhelle
Genre: Drama/Romance
Studio: TLA
Format: DVD
Country: Norway

A high school coming of age tale is a well trodden genre, but a coming of age story coming out of Norway could pretty much be anything, having heard stories of school classes climbing trees in forests, and being forced to drink copious amounts of beer before they’re allowed down during their graduation period.

The Man Who Loved Yngve is not that film, rather it introduces us to Jarle (Rolf Kristian Larsen), a young man with a love of music, Katrine and very little else in his sparse, cold corner of Norway.

Jump forward six months from skipping a school history trip and he has everything a young male could possibly want. Cool friends, a beautiful girlfriend, and he is the frontman in the Mathias Rust Band - but all this is fleeting as Jarle’s about to be introduced to the new boy in school, and the surprising object of his affections, Yngve…


This is a film that is surprisingly void of cliché. Set in 1989, during the height of the aids epidemic, there is always the danger of falling back and relaxing on stereotypes to tell the story. Such is the strength of Stian Kristiansen’s vision and the intelligence of Tore Renberg’s screenplay (which he adapted from his own novel) that this film is never likely to fall into that trap. The love triangle between Jarle, Katrine and Yngve is never overly forced into unnatural narrative scenarios but is allowed to flow organically between the classroom and the tennis court.

Larsen is excellent as Jarle, both as the care free boy who’s got the girl at the beginning of the film and gradually through to confused but curious admirer of Yngve to openly, at least to himself, infatuated teen. His ability to be openly smitten with the new boy yet wearing his mask of ‘normality’ with friends and girlfriend alike is a skill not yet mastered by actors twice his age. Ida Elise Broch (Katrine) is under utilised but represents the ‘gold standard’ of the dreams of every teenage boy in her role as beautiful and sexually active girlfriend/band manager. Yngve (Ole Christoffer Ertvag) has quite a similar job to that of Ida Broch in that he’s given little more to do but be a teenage honey trap for Jarle, but yet it works as this is his tale, his decisions and, ultimately, his life that he is in the process of defining. Arthur Berning, as best friend Helge, gives a strong supporting performance as the alpha male of the group, and most likely the most difficult person Jarle will have to come out to should he decide his future lays with Yngve.

The score is a dream, a strong collection of credible tracks from the ‘80s and contemporary works that sit beautifully together, and most importantly have a strong sense of the character and the influences that a young aspiring musician in Norway during the Cold War decade would have.

The film is not without a sense of humour, something that can be missing in films grounded in such serious issues as sexually and relationships, but fortunately the director has remembered that boys (regardless of sexual orientation) will be boys. Helge’s utter distain at his best friend taking up tennis is something that will make you laugh before you can fully take in just how dark that statement is, given the time period. Likewise, the scene where the best friends venture out to purchase weed from a drug dealer who has managed to break both arms and is in desperate need of someone to help him tidy up after a bowel movement is distinctly Norwegian humour.

The cinematography does an excellent job of depicting where Jarle’s attentions are directed, and his desires swinging without being overly showy or self aware, which is good, as the rest of the film is so silently mature that flashy or overly stylistic cinematography would simply detract.

The film’s real strength is shown in the last twenty minutes. This is not a criticism of the first hour and ten minutes but as the film progresses, and Jarle’s choice become more and more limited, The Man Who Loved Yngve naturally ascends to several significant scenes. The exchange of those three little words at a busy house party between the two boys, Katrine’s tearful exchange in the aftermath of the party (also the strongest drama scene Ida is given) and the showdown between best friends are fitting pay offs for the slow burning dilemmas that have been building up through the course of the film.


Previous experiences of Norwegian cinema could leave you with a misguided view that it was all machismo and death metal documentaries, but that’s clearly not the case. The Man Who Loved Yngve may not be the most original piece of cinema to come out of a nation that is crammed with creative vision, but it is a tender, confident and genuinely moving cinematic achievement. More than anything else, more than a tale of sexuality, friendship, loss, dreams and fears it is a tale of basic human needs. A story simply about love and the mental journey some have to undergo in order to accept it. DL

REVIEW: DVD Release: Dead Snow

Film: Dead Snow
Release date: 31st August 2009

Certificate: 18

Running time: 90 mins

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Starring: Jeppe Laursen, Charlotte Frogner, Jenny Skavlan, Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen

Genre: Horror/Comedy
Studio: E1

Format: DVD

Country: Norway

So, eight medical students head out on their Easter vacation with a car packed full of ski equipment, and enough beer to fuel their escape from everyday life. Isolated in the snowy hills, the group begin to realise they came to the wrong resort, as deep in the hills lies an unthinkable evil. As far as premises go, Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow isn’t the most original.

But, wait – the group consists of four crazy Norwegian guys and four kooky Norwegian girls, each inheriting quirky character traits we’ve seen a million times before. On top of that, one of the girls has decided to meet the rest of the gang at their cabin deep in the woods a day later; her adventurous nature encouraging her to travel alone, without the aid of a vehicle, where she happens upon one seriously creepy old bloke.

One scary story later about the second world war, trade convoys and a bunch of evil gold-hungry German soldiers, and he’s gone, disappearing into the dead of night, praying the seven students heed his browbeating advice. They don’t. They play Twister instead. Until the discovery of an ancient box of treasures hidden away for decades amongst a couple of cans of beer gives rise to, quite literally, Nazi zombies out for revenge.

The group separates to try and escape the sinister infantry, but as they get picked off one by one, a grim discovery summons enough courage and hatred to retaliate – culminating in forty minutes of blood and carnage. Pushed to the limits, the few medical students that survive the initial gory onslaught decide enough is enough. Armed with chain-saws, pickaxes and a snowmobile, they wreak revenge on the Nazi bastards with blustering precision, until somebody realises that maybe it’s not just revenge the evil dead are after…


Opening with an uninspiring and needless chase across the Alps (a girl we have yet to find empathy for dispatched by someone, or something), Wirkola’s Norwegian gore-fest doesn’t start well; all rather pointless, and far too predictable. This monotony continues for a good twenty minutes, as we are introduced to the eight stereotyped protagonists (film geek, bimbo, jock, medical student – who’s scared at the sight of blood?), a creepy old dude warning them away and convenient, clunky plot devices – a lesson in what to do if caught in an avalanche, the doctor’s aversion to vital fluid, the girl that suffers from claustrophobia - it’s all there, waiting for the payoffs to begin.

Luckily, when they do, and we don’t have to wait too long, this run-of-the-mill horror becomes a completely different force altogether. Wirkola wisely chooses his victims, leaving us rooting for fodder worth caring about. Maybe he’s done his homework after all. Gone is the unconvincing chemistry between film geek and bimbo; their moment of passion scarcely credible. Her demise foreshadows some cracking invention, whilst the film geek’s departure brings welcome relief.

The film swiftly moves away from saluting the director’s film collection to deliver completely insane and wonderfully original set-pieces. Wirkola is having fun, and we’re finally being taken along for the ride. Visually, you can’t get much better than blood being shed on snow, and here we have gallons of the stuff, pouring from every orifice. Better still, the kills, from whichever side you root for, are unorthodox and inspired – each one better than the last, and absurdly entertaining for it.

Notable scenes during the pulsating second act include a glorious eaten alive moment from the victim’s perspective, a lesson in first aid with gaffer tape, and a real cliffhanger. The best, though, is saved for the final half-hour; the standout moment involving an amputation or two. Wirkola does spoil it slightly by borrowing a scene from The Descent to kill one of the lesser characters, and then needlessly borrows from himself in the final third, diminishing the joy of watching someone dangling over the edge of a rock face for dear life, clutching onto the intestines of a dead foe to survive.

Yet by splitting the group up halfway through, pairing them off, he does manage to give certain characters more of an edge; Martin and Roy benefiting with great banter, and the latter blessed with some excellent one-liners. It’s no surprise when the two left standing are the ones we can empathise with. It’s here you realise you’ve completely forgotten about the cliché-ridden first act; a thumping rock soundtrack complementing a final one of bloody battles until the slightly disappointing but not unsurprising, bearing in mind the first twenty minutes, resolution.


In all, more fun than Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, Dead Snow is a Norwegian-Nazi-blood-splattered-zombie-fest of a movie, injected with humour, gore and brilliant set-pieces, but you’ll only be rewarded if you survive the banality of the opening twenty minutes. Altogether now, “Ein! Zwei! Die!” DW