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CANNES 2006 Critics’ Week / Norway

Black Kafkaesque humour for The Bothersome Man

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There was a hard-hitting and well-received entry today from Norway’s Jens Lien in the Critics’ Week competition. Three years after his first feature, Jonny Vang, the former rock star presented The Bothersome Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jens Lien
interview: Jørgen Storm Rosenberg
film profile
]
, a skilful and original film set in a bizarre world, half-way between an escape thriller and philosophical tale, polished off with a sharp black humour.

Opening with a suicide scene in the metro, the film recounts the journey of Andreas (played by the excellent Trond Fausa Aurvåg), a man trapped in a sterile town with a job and apartment, where the overly polite conversation is limited to the appreciation of the surrounding decor. Appearing out of nowhere (an allusion to Paris, Texas) and having lost his memory, our unprepared hero, described as “too relaxed", fails to integrate into a social group apparently void of emotions.

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In a world where “nothing has any taste,” he quickly realises it is impossible to escape (due to the surrounding desert) or commit suicide. Is he in Hell or in the afterlife of his true-false suicide from the beginning of the film? The answer is irrelevant, as Per Schreiner’s clever script, based on the art of contradiction, the editing rhythm and the impeccable cinematic quality of the film hardly let the viewer any time to unravel the Kafkaesque mysteries of the story.

From romantic failures to the loneliness of today’s world, the humour in The Bothersome Man works on subtle destruction and some trashy scenes before derailing Andreas in the fantastic and absurd. Digging a tunnel towards a small light leading to a more human world, he will be trapped in extremis, judged by the heads of the community who are taken aback by his stubborn refusal to accept their world of perfect happiness, and finally thrown out into the wilderness.

A Norwegian/Icelandic co-production between Tordenfilm AS and Icelandic Film Company, The Bothersome Man received backing from the Norwegian Film Fund, Sandrew Metronome Norge AS, the Icelandic Film Centre and Norsk Filmstudio AS. Sold internationally by German outfit Bavaria Film International, the film will be released May 26 in Norway.

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(Translated from French)

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