Oslo, 31st August

This is the second film adaptation of the Novel Le Feu follet, written by Drieu Rochelle. The first adaptation was made by Louis Malle in 1963 and starred Maurice Ronet in what is now considered to be Ronet's best part. This film, made in 2011 in Oslo, is about a man in his mid-thirties. At the beginning of the film he is in the last week of a period in a drug rehabilitation clinic. He has a day of liberty when he visits his old friends in Oslo and tries to make contact with an old girlfriend.

He visits a friend, now married with a daughter and adjusting to a life of domesticity, and is taken to a party. He has a job interview. As the day progresses his belief in his ability to re-engage with life slips away and, as we see the world through his eyes, we feel strongly his unhappiness and understand how just being in his skin is intolerable to him. Anders is educated and intellectual and there are long dialogue sequences where he discusses with friends the difficulties that he sees. These scenes are reverberant and impeccably judged. The powerful and persuasive performance of Anders Borchgrevink in the main part succeeds in enabling us to see the impossibility of his future. The job interview, which Anders walks out on, is truly painful to watch, and there is an exquisite scene where he sits in a cafe, eavesdropping on conversations at adjacent tables, showing us his separation from the current of social life.

The final scenes can stand comparison with the memorable endings of some Antonioni films, showing the beginning of a new day in Oslo as life returns returns to the streets, the sun rises and touches roofs, buses start their daily routine; and we know that Anders' body lies lifeless and this is a day he will never see.

This is a deeply moving film and, I am tempted to say, a perfect film; skilfully written, acted and directed.