| ON YOUNG CHRISTIANIAN SHOULDERS : Joachim Trier's 'Reprise' [6/10] : For Tribune |
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| Sunday, 02 September 2007 | |
 Reprise : [6/10] : Norway 2006 Starring : Anders Danielsen Lie, Espen Klouman-Hoiner Director : Joachim Trier UK release-date 7th September 2007 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ UNLIKE Denmark, Sweden and even - thanks to the Kaurismaki brothers - Finland, Norway hasn't made a particularly notable impact in cinematic terms over the last couple of decades. And whenever a promising film-maker does surface (Erik Skjoldbaerg with Insomnia; Pal Sletaune with Junk Mail; Karin Julsrud with Bloody Angels; Bent Hamer with Kitchen Stories) they seldom follow through and break out to the next level. It'll be interesting to see if Danish-born writer-director Trier (nephewn, apparently of Lars 'Von' Trier) can buck the trend. His Reprise, though far from flawless, is a promising debut that suggests this is a name to watch. A slick, rather flashily dour tale of discontent among a group of affluent Oslo twentysomethings - one of them a mentally-unstable novelist; another the on-off singer in a punk band - Reprise runs a heavy "so what" risk, but is ultimately is saved (albeit narrowly) by a sly undercurrent of knowing humour. The gleaming cinematography of good-looking, moody, fashionably-attired Nordic lads ("spoiled rich kids from the west side", as someone accurately labels them at one juncture) occasionally - and amusingly - gives proceedings the look of a late-period a-Ha video, or a even a Dunderdon ad-campaign.This inevitably serves to undercut the characters' ever-so-painful struggles with their various moral, philosophical, personal and creative issues - all of it flecked with a stereotypically "Scandinavian" kind of gloom. Nothing which follows matches the impact of doomily majestic opening titles, in which a festive patriotic parade through the city streets is given an ominous (even apocalyptic) feel via the use of slight slow motion and the accompaniment of Joy Division's New Dawn Fades. This sequence alone is sufficient evidence of Trier's considerable flair and confidence. But time and again he goes overboard with his tricksily in-your-face directorial approach - one that seems intended to mirror the protagonists' own second-hand, too-cool-for-school, archly modish, self-aware aesthetic, but has surely now been done to death in recent cinema. A classic instance, then, of style wrestling with substance, and the former eventually finding an elegant submission-hold. Neil Young for the current issue of Tribune magazine  original review (from Crossing Europe Film Festival, April 2007)
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