Force Majeure

Ask any self-respecting group of Seinfeld fans what the show's antiheroic everyman George Costanza's worst act in the history of the show was, and it won't be long before someone mentions "The Fire", the episode where a fire breaks out at a kids' birthday party and George pushes his way through kids and even pensioners to ensure his own safety. It's heinous, despicable, and morally inexcusable... And funny, because it speaks to our own basest self-preservation instincts and the way we cannot govern how we act in a crisis.

Force Majeure is basically a remake of that episode of Seinfeld, if it had been written by Michael Haneke. Director Ruben Ostland has crafted a wonderful two hour exercise in virtue ethics based around the conceit that, upon seeing an avalanche whilst eating lunch with his family, patriarch Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) panics, grabs his phone, and runs away, as opposed to sticking around to ensure his family's safety. After the initial shock has settled, his wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) begins to take stock, and starts to think, "is this the man I married?", "is this the man I chose to protect me?".

Fittingly, the film has the structure of an avalanche, starting as a slow rumble, not enough to comment on, and building in momentum until before you know it, it's too big to ignore and too late to run away. The film cleverly dissects Tomas's psyche in the wake of the incident, and the effect it has on his family. By extension, the film shrewdly asks questions about what it is we expect of our protectors in life, what that role entails, and the way in which society fosters those roles upon us.

This is exemplified in what was, for me, as opposed to the avalanche itself, the film's centrepiece, a conversation between Tomas and Ebba, their friend Mats (Kristofer Hivju) and his much younger girlfriend Fanni (Fanni Metelius). In it, all the parties air their various grievances, and it becomes clear to everyone in the room (and the audience) that Ebba is not simply going to let this slide. She delivers, masterfully, a monologue where she describes her version of events, while Tomas stares blankly, taking the words like silent punches. Mats and Fanni look on, but eventually Mats sides with Tomas, and Fanni with Ebba. The conversation reveals itself to be less about the incident itself, but about gender roles. Mats tries to justify Tomas's actions by saying that he simply escaped so that he could later return and rescue his family safely; nobody buys it.

Ostlund's direction spells out these lines cannily. He has a habit of exaggerating the frame so that what is presented to us, and what we are hearing, are often at odds with each other. In the aforementioned sequence, Fanni is talking about herself, but all we can see is a closeup of Ebba's face; this is held for a couple of minutes before Ebba begins her monologue, and it leaves the viewer uncertain where Fanni is in relation to everyone else. A lot of scenes occur in this manner, and it's effective, because it forces the viewer into the same state of disassociative confusion that the family has found themselves in.

If it all sounds very clever-clever and heavy-leaden, it isn't. Hidden amongst the flashes of portentousness (cannons firing to control the avalanches punctuate sequences like individually aimed gunshots, or the 1812 Overture), the film has an almost gleefully sadistic, satirical bent, protecting itself against favourable MRA readings by painting Tomas out to be, in some scenes, utterly pathetic. A sequence where he finds himself uncontrollably bawling outside his hotel room, claiming to be held captive by his own instincts, is uncomfortably pitched but hilarious for Ostlund's refusal to look away, and Kuhnke's commitment to character.

Ostlund, in an interview, talks about how typically in films, "man as hero" is the most common trope, and how that doesn't match up to the statistical reality of how men act in an emergency, and how they're usually much more selfish. This is clearly of great interest him, but he cleverly refuses to take one side or another, and acknowledges both realities. Men, yes, are put under a great amount of pressure to provide for those around them, but men also have a tendency to play the victim and expect a great deal, perhaps too much, in return.

This is a dense, knotty, shrewd and refreshingly doe-eyed film, hilarious and a little scary in places, and it doesn't back away from the questions it's asking. As such, it's a moral thriller of the highest calibre, that invites readings on a number of levels, and it engages the viewer on a philosophical level as well as a real-world, practical level. Not many films can do either of those things, let alone be funny on top. It's something of a marvel.

Air Doll

All those people all those lives, where are they now?

With loves, and hates, and passions just like mine,

They were born and then they lived and then they died,

Seems so unfair,

I want to cry.

*****

Hirokazu Koreeda's film "Air Doll", based on Yoshiie Goda's manga, has a synopsis that, at face value, could inspire titters, which is a great shame considering the end result produces anything but. It tells the simple story of a man, Hideo, (Itsuji Itao) and his sex doll, Nozomi, (Doona Bae), who comes to life and develops a "heart" of her own. The initial scenes juggle pathos, as Hideo looks bereft in a supermarket, and comedy, as Hideo addresses Nozomi as if she were alive and makes love with a startling tenderness.

But one day, as Hideo leaves for work, Nozomi's eyes move. She looks around the room, and gets out of bed. She places her hand underneath a railing which is dripping with rain water, and she goes from being completely plastic to something approaching human. She does this slowly, and initially its clear that its an animatronic doll, but at some point the doll becomes the actress. This is cleverly handled, and establishes the quiet physicality that Bae maintains for the remainder of the film; stiff limbs, slow jerky movement, a head that never quite moves comfortably.

Soon Nozomi finds herself on the street, and it's here that the film turns from a curious piece of magical realism into a broad and pondering metaphysical exploration of the meaning of human existence. This is not exaggeration. Scene after scene follows Nozomi as she does things like interacting with children, getting a job, talking to that old dishevelled guy on the bench who you just know probably has an interesting life story, taking her first trip to the restaurant, to the beach, learning what it means to cling onto someone on the back of a motorbike.

The film is basically a parable on learning what it means to be a part of this world. Doona Bae is the perfect actress for this; her eyes are endlessly wide, drinking in the sights of the world with all the fervour of a parched man in the desert. The film transports you back to when you were a child, and calls to mind Wordsworth's idea that heaven lies about us in our infancy. This is an unfussy film that asks little of the audience, other than to take in what Nozomi takes in, as she takes it in.

The film is unconcerned with the specifics of her status as an ex-sex doll. There is a moment midway through where she cuts her arm on a hinge, deflates, and has to be blown back to life by her co-worker, but even this isn't handled as a piece of comedy of the kind one might expect with a sex doll, but instead (and later on in the film also) as a metaphor for the way we want to breathe life into the people we love (and that these attempts can often be so ruinous).

There is just so much to observe with this film. It's crafted with all tenderness of a soft kiss, from the gentle sound design by Yutaka Tsurumaki, to the dreamy and creamy urban cinematography from Ping Bin Lee, which finds a kind of visual poetry amongst the small local shops and big skyscrapers stacked high up past our field of vision, and the streets with black washing lines dangling like bars on sheet music. It is a subtle exercise in empathy, as we find ourselves marvelling at the world in the same way Nozomi does.

The score, from World's End Girlfriend is a blissful affair. There are several moments where Koreeda leisurely gives way to a montage, flitting from person to person that Nozomi has observed as they face either joyous elation or downtrodden despair, that feel like they were edited to the music after it was composed.

Of course, after the initial rush of giddiness, we develop notions of unfairness, cruelty, and sadness. As Nozomi eventually observes, "having a heart has been so heartbreaking". But even these revelations are observed gently, and with little force. Compared to Under The Skin, another film about an outsider reacting to humanity for the first time, this is much more hopeful, and optimistic.

This is a film that understands what it means to exist. Koreeda's eye for detail is unrelenting, and he has turned what could have been a forgettable comedy into a film I doubt I will ever forget. Like the works of Alain De Botton, it configures everyday truths into miniature works of art. As Nozomi quietly observes, "why is it that the world is constructed so loosely?"

It's a question that we'll never know the answer to. But it's healthy to ask things like that every now and again, and the act of asking, of recognising these truths, constitutes some form of an answer all on its own. This film, along with everything else, gets that.