One of the biggest developments in arthouse movies in recent years is the emergence of two gifted directors from Norway on the world scene, Joachim Trier, who made The Worst Person in the World and Sentimental Value, with the latter expected to be a contender for multiple Oscars; and Dag Johan Haugerud, whose trilogy of films, Sex Dreams Love, has been receiving rapturous reviews and winning awards all over the world. His film, Sex, played in Israel last year, and Dreams and Love are both in theaters now.
Haugerud’s films are all about the dialogue, and most scenes feature long, revealing conversations between the protagonists. Even his film Sex was mainly talk, between two ostensibly straight, working-class men, one of whom has had a dream fantasy about David Bowie, while the other man reports he has just had a casual sexual encounter with another man.
Dreams and Love continue the cerebral talkfest theme. They are, in many ways, reminiscent of the work of the French New Wave master, Eric Rohmer, whose films focused more on characters articulating their feelings than on what they actually did. In Rohmer’s most famous film, Claire’s Knee, an older man becomes obsessed with the body part mentioned in the title, which belongs to a young woman, and it’s all about what he thinks about this knee.
While Rohmer’s brand of cinema is too slow and reserved for some, many have found magic in how his characters grapple with their search for happiness, love, and meaning, which the director, even when he was quite old, approached with the single-minded intensity of a philosophy student.
Haugerud’s movies, while they definitely follow the path blazed by Rohmer, are not as magical, somehow, and seem a bit more didactic in their exploration of gender roles.
Dreams tells the story of a 17-year-old girl, Johanne (Ella Overbye), who falls in love with her French teacher, who confusingly happens to be named Johanna (Selome Emnetu), and then writes a book about it. The movie is set in a far different milieu from Sex. Johanne is from an upper-class family. They live in Oslo but own a lovely lakeside cabin. Karin (Anne Marit Jacobsen), her grandmother, is a feminist poet, and her mother, Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp), seems to work from home doing something creative but not too taxing. A man named Lars is mentioned by Karin, but no males seem to be around, except for a therapist at the very end. It’s a universe of women, so it makes sense that the girl would fall for her beautiful, warm, and insightful teacher.
But while Johanne takes a couple of days off when she is feeling rejected by her teacher, the two have a strong emotional connection and spend time together, but the relationship never becomes sexual – she never descends into familiar patterns of bad teenage behavior. Instead, she writes an apparently high-quality book-length manuscript about the object of her affection. At first, her mother thinks her teacher has taken advantage of her and should be disciplined, while her grandmother feels the book should be published because it is brilliant. There are many long discussions about it, some during walks in the woods, and the two older women gradually shift their positions.
There is never a great deal of suspense about whether the book will be published because, early on, it is mentioned that it was, and during the long conversations, I found my mind drifting to their sweaters. It’s set in winter, and part of Johanne’s infatuation begins to take shape when she notices Johanna’s lovely sweaters. It turns out that the teacher is a textile designer and makes them herself; she teaches her student how to knit. Part of Johanne’s quasi-sexual fantasy is about a lover wrapping her with a knit scarf, and Johanna does that for her. All the characters wear beautiful, comfy-looking winter garments, and, as I watched, I kept wishing it were chillier outside and that I could wear such a sweater. I wondered where I could buy such a sweater. Obviously, had the movie been more engrossing, I wouldn’t have focused so much on the knitwear.
Love is about a different sector of Norwegian society, medical professionals, and much of it is set on the immaculate ferry that the characters take to their work in a hospital. In this film, the main characters are a man and a woman, but he is gay, and she is not. Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig) is a no-nonsense doctor, and Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen) is a caring male nurse. They open up to each other about their romantic and sexual lives during their commute. Tor is uninhibited and enjoys casual encounters, while Marianne goes on formal dates and hopes for a relationship. But as they talk, she begins to look at love from his point of view and starts to test whether a casual approach to romance can work for her.
It’s the same approach of long dialogue-heavy scenes, but in this case, there is an undercurrent of comparing stereotypes and traditional male and female roles. This brings the movie back to the subtext of Sex, but doesn’t necessarily make it any more enjoyable to watch. It made me value Rohmer’s work even more because he wanted to explore his characters’ hearts and minds, but he never had an agenda of any kind.
If you are curious and want to see one of these films, I would start with Dreams, where, if you get bored with the dialogue, you can always enjoy the sweaters.