Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Øyenstikker (Dragonflies)

"Eyesticker", was Frode's translation. There's possibly a double-meaning in the Norwegian that gets misplaced in translation. Scandinavian wetland insects are obviously not that friendly!

Eddie, a big bearded man in his early forties and younger, pregnant girlfriend Maria have set themselves up in an idyllic rural sanctuary (largely from their past selves). One day, they stop at a petrol station and Eddie's eyes meet those of Kullman, a former associate that we learn served time for a crime they both committed. This enigmatically menacing character returns to Eddie's place to play gooseberry long enough to manipulate his host into joining him on a revenge mission. As Peter French put it, "It's one of those films in which a mysterious figure from the past arrives in the present clutching a spanner and looking for some works into which it might be thrown."

V watched this before me and reckoned that the ending was rather flat relative to all the forboding fomented before it. But at the level of both mood and especially of unanswered questions I experienced Marius Holst's film as a steady unfurling and enjoyed it greatly from start to finish.

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