Force Majeure

When A Swedish family spend a week at a luxury ski resort in the French Alps, they dreamed of it being fun and energetic break that would bring them together. What Tomas and Ebba find is that skiing becomes less of a concern to them and as the week progresses they instead find the chaotic nature of the family and its forces, tearing at the seams. As chemistry forces them into new revelations and realisations about life together and apart. By the end of the week we will have a wealth of underlying tensions and truths explored.

A film like this is very rare. It works along very clever but yet very delicate lines. By exposing its story and its character, a layer at a time we see the dimension of performances growing and the art of a director in flow. The performances are exceptional in their tempo and in their grace. Lisa Loven Kongsli for instance is excellent as the mother of the piece. She is facing a dilemma of vast magnitude and convincingly expresses the slow building dimensions of the breaking of illusions and the thump of discovery. Johannes Bah Kuhnke refreshes a role that could have been one dimensional and dry. As a father that runs away from protecting his family it could have caused us to hate him. He gives an unlikeable person, depth and even empathy. Kristofer Hivju is the comedic backbone. This is to say that he is the black humor of the piece and will leave some without a chuckle or a laugh as he plays it straight. In my opinion this is key to his performances body, as it makes it richer but some will not like this.

Ostlund needs to be given a whole heap of credit for what he has done here. He makes the balance ( a word I use a lot) of the piece with great pacing and compositions. This is doubled up by great shot selection and even a fantastic flow of scenes. They flow in a way that is very much like a Theo Angelopoulos or Abbas Kiarostami piece. That is to say that not much happens but it is essential to see and as such lets us know minor details that expose the whole. Mix this with the use of charector motivations divulged by slight manners or movements that feel like a Wenders construct. OStlund may replace all of these great film makers with his temprement and his eye for cinema. Overall a fantastic looking and feeling film.