A city without problems
without memories
without death
without pain
But there’s always someone who is a troublemaker
This week’s featured movie The Bothersome Man (Norwegian: Den brysomme mannen) like last week’s Vivarium find the protagonists trapped in dystopian worlds where they attempt to escape. The world in Vivarium is set in a surreal, maze-like nightmare where as The Bothersome Man is a outwardly perfect, yet empty and unfulfilling dystopia. There are many parallels between this dystopia and the happiness and painless concentration camps explored in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Unlike last week’s Vivarium which had a poor reception, this film was well received by critics and audience alike. I agree this is the better movie despite Vivarium‘s continued encroachment on my psyche.
Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment – even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there’s no way out. Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar. Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to “the other side”? A new plan for escape is hatched.
The Bothersome Man is a darkly humorous film because it contains so many awkward conversational interactions between the Andreas the inquisitive protagonist and the relatively sedated population. This is a little like the crop of comic serious surreal movies in the last twenty years where you part laugh and part are gasping in appreciation for the reality invented. I’m thinking Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Being John Malkovich, but I probably enjoyed The Bothersome Man more.
Andreas finds himself in a place in the society that gives him access to “happiness” and ‘material abundance’: – an apartment – a convertible – friends from the work place – a girl, who has only interest for kitchens. Andreas has other values, is sensitive and want to make choices: warm chocolate and children.
What impressed me throughout and I hadn’t seen it in a movie before were the continued closeups and extended shots of the protagonist’s face which exhibits great nuance, sensibility and feel. Big props to the actor Trond Fausa Aurvåg and the director who took great risk to overextend the shots, but never feel overdone, on the contrary, they only enhance the sense of his state of despair.
If anyone would like to experience this in real person I invite you to visit Cedritos, Bogota Colombia or Oslo as described below in Norway.
I saw this movie yesterday and can’t stop thinking about it. I moved to Norway four months ago, and have tried ever since to find the origin of the strange emptiness I felt. When I saw this film I was struck with the brilliant snapshot of this society. Yes, this is all true!!! I too found a great job with a great pay, and I live with my Norwegian boyfriend in a nice apartment downtown. But, so far everyone I have met have left me with that tasteless, empty feeling I had never had before – this is what this movie is about. Dinner parties with nothing to say to each other but emotionless comments, long silences, no stress, a creepy calm, and frozen smiles of niceness. This Scandinavian nightmare is perfectly rendered in Den Brysomme mannen. See this movie!!!
– Canadian in Norway
References:
1. Den brysomme mannen – IMDB
2. The Bothersome Man – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Sounds good Matt.
Hi there Sharon. Thanks for your email.
This is a really intriguing and funny movie. I’m looking forward to seeing it again. Let me know if you see it.
I’ll look for it. Cheers Matt!
It sounds like a Twilight Zone type of setup…I think I would really like it.
Actually, I think you would really like it. There is definitely a Twilight Zone feel to it. His interactions are just so bizarrely funny. I think I laughed more than what I felt comfortable. He has this gorgeous girlfriend that is obssessed with interior decorating (as are most of the other characters) – so he starts out kinda of ‘Yeh we could make that change’, but then she wants another wall kicked out and it becomes so absurd. I’ll try to find a clip of it. His facial reactions are just priceless.
Yes…I’ll tell Bailey about it and we will see about getting it. Anything with a start like that…I like automatically. I like when someone is dropped into a strange situation like that.