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Cast: Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Fridtjof Såheim, Nina Andresen Borud, Reidar Sørensen, Ingunn Beate Øyen
A desperate, cuckolded man dresses up as Santa Claus, beats his wife’s lover over the head with a shovel, and sneaks into his family home to give his children presents and spend time with his wife. A Serbian man holds up a doctor with a blade – it seems he is looking for drugs, but really he is desperate to find someone to deliver his wife’s baby. A homeless man attempts to break into a woman’s car, only to discover that she was his first childhood sweetheart. She allows him to shower and shave, before feeding him and sending him home to his family with a Christmas tree.
These are just a few of the surreal and touching vignettes that weave their way through this bewitching, snowy tapestry. A magical time that has been lost to advertising jingles and last minute shopping sprees in most of the Western world, is here treated with a uniquely Skandinavian frosty admiration. Christmas, in this film, is a time of haunting beauty; where desperation and hope meet in equal measure.
The film is based on a series of short stories by Levi Henriksen, and this has allowed Hamer a great deal of freedom to experiment with different tones and styles of filmmaking without worrying too much about consistency or unity. In this barren and timeless landscape, the various stories could be happening hundreds of miles apart or right next door to each other, it doesn’t really matter. The tone shifts constantly from melodrama to thriller to fairytale to romance; and the film benefits from the energy and freedom resulting from this lack of collusion.
That is not to suggest that Hamer has been given an easy ride. The film is only 85 minutes long, and his ability to fill those minutes with so many individual storylines that never become muddled or clichéd is nothing short of masterful. By the end of the film every strand has reached a fulfilling conclusion; and they all work to create a simple, glowing synergy as the Serbian couple, holding their newborn baby stare up at the Aurora Borealis playing out above them.
While the entire world of the film is nestled deep in snow, there are no flurries during the film. This is a world of stillness and calm, where the only warmth and movement comes from the people that live there. Whether the vignette concerns a bitter spinster, a depressed cuckold, or a lovelorn teen; the whole film is imbued with a tender-hearted hopefulness that makes this a must see film, especially during the festive season!
A desperate, cuckolded man dresses up as Santa Claus, beats his wife’s lover over the head with a shovel, and sneaks into his family home to give his children presents and spend time with his wife. A Serbian man holds up a doctor with a blade – it seems he is looking for drugs, but really he is desperate to find someone to deliver his wife’s baby. A homeless man attempts to break into a woman’s car, only to discover that she was his first childhood sweetheart. She allows him to shower and shave, before feeding him and sending him home to his family with a Christmas tree.
These are just a few of the surreal and touching vignettes that weave their way through this bewitching, snowy tapestry. A magical time that has been lost to advertising jingles and last minute shopping sprees in most of the Western world, is here treated with a uniquely Skandinavian frosty admiration. Christmas, in this film, is a time of haunting beauty; where desperation and hope meet in equal measure.
The film is based on a series of short stories by Levi Henriksen, and this has allowed Hamer a great deal of freedom to experiment with different tones and styles of filmmaking without worrying too much about consistency or unity. In this barren and timeless landscape, the various stories could be happening hundreds of miles apart or right next door to each other, it doesn’t really matter. The tone shifts constantly from melodrama to thriller to fairytale to romance; and the film benefits from the energy and freedom resulting from this lack of collusion.
That is not to suggest that Hamer has been given an easy ride. The film is only 85 minutes long, and his ability to fill those minutes with so many individual storylines that never become muddled or clichéd is nothing short of masterful. By the end of the film every strand has reached a fulfilling conclusion; and they all work to create a simple, glowing synergy as the Serbian couple, holding their newborn baby stare up at the Aurora Borealis playing out above them.
While the entire world of the film is nestled deep in snow, there are no flurries during the film. This is a world of stillness and calm, where the only warmth and movement comes from the people that live there. Whether the vignette concerns a bitter spinster, a depressed cuckold, or a lovelorn teen; the whole film is imbued with a tender-hearted hopefulness that makes this a must see film, especially during the festive season!
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