Search - The Bothersome Man on DVD

Provocative Norwegian film is worth seeing

Andres C. Salama | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 04/11/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This Norwegian film starts with a man jumping over the subway, apparently commiting suicide. But the next scene shows him arriving in a lonely bus into a desert. There he meets a man, and is shipped off to a mysterious city, where he starts working in an aseptic modern office as an accountant. The coworkers seem nice, if emotionless, and he soon meets a woman who becomes his girlfriend, yet the city seems utterly strange, as the food has no taste, alcohol doesn't make you drunk, and there's nary a children around. Is this a dream, or is he in paradise, or in hell?. While at times, the films looks as extended episode of The Twilight Zone (even at ninety minutes, the movie seems a bit long), it is quite thought provoking. The best scenes are those in which the exaggeration is minimal, as when the people engage in banal conversations about interior decoration, and recoil at discussing deeper issues. I always thought there was something inhuman in advanced capitalist societies, in the way they try to repress the basic urges of human nature. And this movie is best when it devastatingly critiques this life style. Unfortunately, the movie is a bit too long, and the director doesn't seem to know how to end it, but most for of the running time this is very much worth seeing."

Utopia undone

M. J. Smith | Seattle, WA USA | 04/05/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is not a film that grabbed my attention from the first frame but ultimately is a satisfying-puzzling-thought-provoking film. The film is very visual with the choice of landscapes, urban development and interior decor carrying a significant role in moving the story-line forward. The use of sound brings emphasis to the visual elements - especially the silence.

The plot is fascinating in that it works ... it is essentially a middle with neither beginning nor end. That is to say that why/how Andreas, the protagonist, is delivered to the false utopian city is never known. And at the end where Andreas leaps from a moving bus into the light, the result of that leap is never shown. This leaves the viewer a very open interpretation possibility. The bland superficiality of the city may be an indictment of comtemporary culture, of the failure of utopian dreams, of individuals satisfied with the appearance of pleasure rather than actual pleasure ...

The short film on the dvd is True Story by Stephanie J. Via. The setting is well chosen, the script believable. For my taste, however, the hammering home of the social message rather than trusting the strength of the art (film) is a serious flaw."

Stays with you for a while after you stop watching it...

A. Raj Rao | NorthEast | 05/19/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was a really interesting and somewhat disturbing movie. How do I put it? Anyone read Albert Camus' The Stranger (L'Étranger)? You have that very impersonal guy, Meursault who is very disconnected with the rest of the world. Meursault navigates himself through a world personned by color, emotion, feeling, spirituality, life and so on, and yet he is totally not connected to any of it.

This movie seems sort to be giving you a reverse situation. It is as if it asks - what happens to a person when he finds himself in a world populated by Meursaults? And that is just what happens. Andreas apparently winds up at a bus stop in a desert-like place and from there is taken to a very modern spic and span city. Here he is given perhaps everything that anyone could want in life - a job, friends, a girlfriend, nice apartment, etc. - What more could you ask for in life??? - Yet in spite of it all something is missing. The city, which he reached by way of the desert is itself a desert of sorts. The city (and its people) lacks color, emotion, feeling, etc. It is nothing but flesh, bone and nerve amidst concrete, gravel and steel. It is a hollow place. Andreas' sense that there something not right with the place increases as he finds the place to be more and more alienating. Ok - I'll stop here and not say anymore about the story -

The movie seems to be some kind of existential commentary on modern societies, where on the surface, you seem to have everything, but deep within have nothing, and the lives lived are those of Thoreau's quiet desperation.

- Very good and intelligent movie.
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