Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund, 2014):Sweden, France and Norway

Reviwed by Felix Palmqvist. Santa Barbara, 2016. Antioch University SBIFF.

This film is something special, I must say. Most people who see it will probably think it is a little slow and boring since some scenes are pretty long. But stay! There is a reason why it has such slow takes. The film is based on social meetings and experiences between people. Common relationship problems are shown to the audience through long silent takes, where the facial and body expressions tell the story. We recognize the situations and draw parallels to real life.

Johannes Kuhnke, who was the main character, played his role very well. This is likely because he knows the typical Swedish behavior. I cannot really put it into words, but there was something so typically Swedish about the film. The socially awkward moments and the way they tried to pretend like everything was good until they both got way too fed up with each other bring us to this simultaneous breakdown of the whole family.

This Swedish/Norwegian family goes on a ski vacation to the French Alps. You can feel from the start that the family has seen better days, but they seem to have a good time and things go pretty smoothly until they witness a life-threatening situation which further worsens the mom’s trust issues with the dad.  The couple struggles to pretend like nothing is wrong until the cup overflows.
Asking friends for advice in awkward ways makes the otherwise tragic film into more of a dark, humorous comedy.

The film is basically just shot in wide or mid static-tripod shots from a distance, except two-three panning shots throughout the whole film. There are no close-ups, no cut-away shots, and no music, except every once in a while there is a classic music theme playing. But there is no music to create a feeling or set the mood to shots or actions. All shots are just natural sound. I do not now what the purpose of the short classical music parts that play randomly throughout the movie is.

You have to have patience to really enjoy this film, as I said before. There is not much action. But take your time and watch until the end. I do not think you will be disappointed, especially if you are from Scandinavia.