Jens Lien - Den Brysomme Mannen aka The Bothersome Man (2006)

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/6743/bothersomebw3.jpg

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5333/imdbimage.jpg

Norwegian director Jens Lien's debut, The Bothersome Man, is a surreal, idiosyncratic black comedy. Forty-year-old Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvag) steps off a bus into a strange city, with no memory of how he arrived. Soon, he's got a job, a flat, and a girlfriend. But, strangely, the new world that he inhabits is devoid of emotion, or laughter. Even the food tastes of nothing. This is a stylish, subtle, and funny satire on the dehumanising effects of our consumer society.

When Andreas mysteriously arrives in this new town, it seems a perfect place to live. He is fitted out with an office at an accountancy firm, and a smart new apartment. The people are friendly; he even finds romance with the pretty Anne-Britt (Petronella Barker). But beneath the surface, there is something sinister. This clean, efficient, smiling town is entirely without human feeling. Dinner parties are strangely joyless affairs, where friends obsess over interior decor. Hot chocolate is bland. And anyway, where on earth is he? Soon, Andreas is determined to escape.

Lien's clinical style, and a palette of beige and grey, helps to bring this soulless world to the screen. Meanwhile, we wonder: is Andreas in the afterlife, or trapped in a nightmare of his own devising? In any case, it's impossible to miss the barbed take on our own culture of affluence and conformity, in which emotion is often labelled a troublesome side issue. Aurvag is master of wonderfully deadpan comedic timing, and Birgitte Larsen shines as young Ingeborg, with whom he falls in love. Feeling trapped in a sterile existential nightmare? Then see The Bothersome Man; it understands how you feel. --David Mattin

top Movie Channel

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Jens Lien - Den Brysomme Mannen aka The Bothersome Man (2006)

0 comments:

Post a Comment

HIstory

Category

About Me

Followers