(Sweden, 118 min.)
Written and directed by Ruben Östlund
Starring: Johannes Bah, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren,
Vincent Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius
 |
| Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren and Vincent Wettergren in Force Majeure, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. |
Ah, the family vacation. They’re the best of times and the
worst of times; an unnatural disaster of escapism in which parents and children
squeeze into close confines 24/7 and try to have some fun. Anything is possible
if one survives one of these excursions.
Ski holidays are an especially fun class of family vacations, since they call and parents and children alike to be bright and cheery whilst spending eight hours a day in frigid temperatures and blustery winds. Don’t get me wrong, some of my best family memories are ski vacations, but anyone who wants to experience true irritability should probably hit the slopes with family, whiz down the moguls in sub-zero winds, and then head back to a hotel room that can barely contain a family of rabbits and play some games. Look not to the ski hill for relaxation.
Writer/director Ruben Östlund seems to have been on many of
these love/hate holidays, for he finds a hilarious comedy of manners in the
family vacation from hell in Sweden’s Force
Majeure. Force Majeure is
Sweden’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film in this year’s
Academy Awards race and it could easily go all the way. This is world cinema’s
equivalent to a Griswold family gong show. It’s deadpan funny, black comedy at
its finest, and a scathingly sharp examination of gender roles and human
nature.
The gist of the film is that a family goes to enjoy five
days of skiing in the French Alps, but the pleasant escape of whooshing down
the slopes is cut short on the second day. Whilst sitting on the patio of the
ski lodge and enjoying an outdoor lunch, the family witnesses an avalanche that
explodes out of control and engulfs the picturesque patio at which they dine.
Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), the mother, huddles with her kids Vera and Harry
(Clara and Vincent Wettergren) while Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), the father,
saves his iPhone and skedaddles. “Women and children first” be damned.
Nothing quite ruins a family getaway like the thought that
daddy doesn’t care if his kids and wife die under a bazillion tonnes of snow
and ice. (It happens, right?) Well, Ebba understandably finds her marriage
shaken as she looks anew at the man practically dragged to the ski hill for
some quality family time. The problem magnifies, however, since Tomas refuses
to discuss the incident since he recalls it differently in which own mind.
Tomas thinks he stayed strong and huddled with the kids. How manly of him. And how
awkward.
Force Majeure
drolly plays the audience against husband and wife by showing a dramatization
of events that solely mirrors Ebba’s version of the story while Tomas
unwaveringly stands by his account that he stayed by his family’s side. The he
said/she said dynamic screws the tension tighter as Tomas and Ebba regale their
fellow skiers with the story of their near-death experience and cause awkward
silences and pledges of allegiance as friends either take sides or skirt the
issue with trivial niceties. Force
Majeure stings extra hard in a volatile popular culture that frequently
sees debates polarized into gender divides (albeit sometimes necessarily so)
and Östlund plays upon the characters’ notions of proper masculinity/femininity
by having spouses take sides with either Tomas or Ebba, or alternately judge
them for things like “unmanly behaviour.” Lines are drawn almost immediately by
gender as defenses are posited and defenses are made as the friends whom Tomas
and Ebba engulf in their squabble try to imagine what they’d do in the same
position and pre-emptively defend themselves against hypotheticals. It’s
extremely funny, if only for how bluntly honest it is.
Östlund similarly has a riot finding a deadpan visual style
to match the dark humour. Deep focus widescreen cinematography accentuates the
banality of the ski trip, extending the cringe-inducing holiday into a bunch of
awkward family photos as every step and movement seems farcically exaggerated
against the snowy backdrop. Force Majeure
paints the snowy resort as a sardonically hostile environment in which the
hilly landscape, peppered with ominous explosions of controlled avalanches,
seems far more inviting than the wood-panelled hotel in which the family enjoys
a contagious case of cabin fever. Östlund makes the claustrophobia of the hotel
even funnier with the aid of a demure custodian who creeps on Ebba and Tomas
like a voyeur or, better yet, a guy who is simply enjoying the show as the
family dissolves over the holiday.
Whether gender even has anything to do with the existential
conundrum of Force Majeure is the bigger
ruse since Tomas’s sissines invites a greater debate about the dark folly of
human nature. Do people inherently want to help those in need? Is the idea of
putting one’s kin ahead of oneself just a bogus social nicety? Alternatively,
like some Darwinian survival game, do people inherently want to save their own
skins no matter the imminent consequences to their closest kin?
Force Majeure
introduces these questions as they tense, wine-fuelled arguments between Tomas,
Ebba, and whomever gets caught in the crosshairs try to understand and/or
rationalize Tomas’s behaviour by relating it to real life disasters in which
grown adults saved themselves at the expense of children, the elderly, and
others in need. Rabbits and spiders might eat their young, but humans generally
set themselves apart from animals by preserving hope for the future, although
one especially hilarious sequence of Force
Majeure puts Tomas’s in a sweaty den full of rambunctious males and no
discernable trace of civility.
Bah is very good as Tomas, for he plays the inept patriarch
totally straight as he saves face against his inept masculinity. Kongsli is
equally fine as Ebba as she gives an emotionally charged turn as her character
watches her marriage billow out of control like the snowy avalanche, but
fiercely takes charge. Both husband and wife and having a horrible holiday and
they’re taking everyone down with them, but half the fun of Force Majeure is knowing that this
family is not your own, no matter how true to life their follies might be. Nobody can really judge the situation unless one
survives it, and the droll finale of Force
Majeure delivers a punch line that zings civilization as one big overreaction
as Tomas, Ebba, and company see their situation in a new light.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Force Majeure screens at the European Union Film Festival on Friday, Nov. 27 at 7:00 pm at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington St.
The European Union
Film Festival runs Nov. 13-30.
Please visit www.cfi-icf.ca for more information on this
year’s festival.
More coverage of the European Union Film Festival may be found here.
Force Majeure is also currently playing in limited release.
It screens again in Ottawa at The ByTowne beginning Dec. 5.
More coverage of the European Union Film Festival may be found here.
Force Majeure is also currently playing in limited release.
It screens again in Ottawa at The ByTowne beginning Dec. 5.
