Tag Archives: Ellen Dorrit Petersen

Mommy’s Little Angel

Armand

by George Wolf

If you’re the parent of young children, your first reaction to troubling accusations against them is likely to be denial.

There must be some mistake, right? My child would never do such a thing.

It’s a catalyst that almost demands taking sides, and one that writer/director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel explores to unique effect in Armand.

The mesmerizing Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World, Handling the Undead, A Different Man) is Elisabeth, a Norwegian actress who is summoned to her son’s school for an urgent conference. Six year-old Armand has been accused of bullying his friend Jon in the boys restroom. The incident apparently involved acts of “sexual deviation.”

Jon’s parents, Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) are waiting at the school with two administrators and the boys’ teacher. And what begins as a calm attempt at fact-finding slowly dissolves into a fascinating unraveling of mystery, fantasy, and outright curiosity.

Ullmann Tøndel and cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth keep us inside the sterile school building for nearly all of the film’s two hours, puncturing the strained decorum with an array of devices. There are persistent nosebleeds, the sound of heels echoing on hard floors, moments of psychological performance art, and one alarming fit of laughter that purposely strains your patience.

It all helps to distinguish the film from similarly themed dramas such as The Teacher’s Lounge or even Mass, but also threatens to keeps us detached through self indulgence. The can’t-look-away excellence from Reisve never lets it happen, and Armand – which won the Caméra d’Or, for Best First Feature last year at Cannes – rewards audience commitment with a satisfying, if not exactly revelatory, resolution in Act Three.

The characters may be talking about children, but the film is talking about adults. Armand presents a challenging, but ultimately haunting take on the lingering dangers of convincing ourselves that everything is fine.

None More Black

Leave

by Hope Madden

A baby left in a cemetery grows up to search for answers. Why was she abandoned in such a place, wrapped in a blanket covered in satanic markings and wearing an inverted cross? She discovers her parents were in a Norwegian Black Metal band.

So, to be honest, that explains it. Common practice, probably, and yet Hunter (Alicia von Rittberg) wants to know more.

Wait, will there be Norwegian Black Metal in Alex Herron’s Leave? Nice!

Herron, bringing writer Thomas Moldestad’s mystery to the screen, pits what you think you know about good against evil as he uproots a New Englander for Norway’s shores and answers.

Von Rittberg’s American accent is spotty, but the performance isn’t weakened by it. Her vulnerable but determined performance ably captures Hunter’s existential dilemma. She’s polite, slightly needy, capable but a little desperate. And the smiling faces she finds may or may not really be her friends.

These faces belong to rock stars (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and schizophrenics (Morten Holst), spoiled cousins (Herman Tømmeraas) and clingy aunts (Ragnhild Gudbrandsen).  

Herron’s atmosphere makes the safe look seedy and the dangerous appear benign, but there is more depth to the tale than that. Yes, every character is a little slower on the uptake than they should be. And yet, somehow ­– thanks mostly to the film’s understatement – you don’t disbelieve any of the characters. Stig R. Amdam delivers a particularly nuanced turn as the family patriarch.

There are interesting themes here concerning patriarchy and “Christianity”, but Herron doesn’t belabor the point. His film is rarely showy, and even at its most obvious this light touch keeps it engaging.

Still, I think I was promised Norwegian Black Metal.