Trollhunter 2010

Trollhunter 2010

So this zany Norwegian film came to me through a review done by Movie Bob over at the online e-zine/website The Escapist.  Movie Bob and his webshow Escape to the Movies are great and I highly recommend it.  I respect his reviews and agree with his points even when I totally disagree with his verdict.  The most important note about Movie Bob is that he is a great movie reviewer that usually manages to be funny as well as informing.  Now that I did a plug for his review of Trollhunter I can skip the rest of this and go back and watch it again...

OK it is totally worth watching two or more times, but I should do my own work.  So Bob summed up the best parts for me and turned me on to this Norwegian gem, but it warrants a bit more of a write up!  Trollhunter is yet another example of fantastic Scandinavian cinema.  There have been a glut of Swedish films becoming popular in the last few years (most notable are Let the Right One In [2008], The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo [2009] and its sequels) and I have had been salivating to get my hands on a copy of the awesome Christmas comedy horror film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (check out the trailer here) from Finland, but Norway has largely been overlooked by this film addict (though Dead Snow [2009] the Nazi zombie flick is on my to watch list).  A recent article on the Hollywood Reporter website claims that Norwegian and other Scandinavian films are being sold left and right this year at the Cannes Film Festival so perhaps there will be even more oddball wonders to enjoy in the coming year!

Back to Trollhunter, the film is the, fictional, story of a government troll hunter in Norway.  It takes a page our two out of the Blair Witch Project's playbook and is shot using "found" footage from a "missing" group of student journalists.  It is shot using hand cams and reinforces the amateur feel with various scenes of the crew setting up mics and cables.  The crew are a set of students who are trying to get an interview with a man they believe is a bear hunter, but in reality is a government sponsored troll hunter.  This relationship of interviewer and subject plays out perfectly with the skeptical film crew asking all the right question allowing the troll hunter to fill in the myths, legend, and story.  The story is pretty basic and doesn't need much explaining, but the basic premise is that the troll hunter character is fundamentally an animal control officer who answers to a mysterious bureaucrat.  He leads the film crew on an expedition over northern Norway to find out why the trolls have begun to leave their native territories.

As stated above the story and writing are fairly straightforward, yet done exceptionally well.  A few times it is obvious that writing and camera work were done in ways to minimize the expensive CG work, but it didn't really detract from the narrative.  The writer/director on the project was Andre Ovredal.  Orvredal did a fantastic job of maximizing his budget and using natural settings to create a great atmosphere.  The film was shot by Hallvard Braein who does some great work shooting mostly at night with limited light sources.  A few of the scenes using the camera's "night vision" setting didn't work that well though.  The special effects and CG studios involved were Gimpville and Storm Studios who both did a fantastic job creating great trolls, both in terms of sound and visuals, with a limited budget.  The overall film budget was between $3 and $3.5 million USD, which is great considering the amount of visual effects required.  The trolls are have that CG glossy sheen at times, but are diverse, interesting, and well made.  The soundtrack was oddly hilarious at times which fit with this oddly comic mock-umentary, but this could just be an issue due to cultural differences as most of the movie is played dead straight despite its humorous nature.

The acting by the film crew is good, but not exceptional and most won't recognize the actors.  The troll hunter is played by Otto Jespersen.  Jespersen is the real standout performance in the film.  His character is intentionally flat and emotionless playing up that he is a worn-out government functionary perfectly.  The troll hunter's shabby trailer, beat up Range Rover, and costumes blend towards making the story seem feasible.

In conclusion Troll Hunter is a great foreign film.  It is a wonderful comedic look at the legend of trolls and is shot in a fake documentary style that makes it into a wild ride.  The film has the usual short comings of monster movies and foreign movies, but these roll together to give it a great campy charm.  I would recommend this movie to fans of Scandinavian movies and those that just love foreign monster flicks.

Four Lions 2010

Four Lions 2010

Four Lions is one of those foreign films that could never be produced in the United States.  It is the story of a smell cell of incompetent jihadists.  The group desperately wants to be Al Qeada suicide bombers, but the group only includes an idiot, a white man, a social incompetent, a rapper straight out of school, and a family man.  This dark comedy is the story of their struggle to bomb an important symbol of British Imperialism.  They fail in every way imaginable and that is where this movie becomes a fun satire laughing at jihadists. 

The creator, Chris Morris, considers himself a satirist, but the subject matter is a bit raw.  He collated years of funny stories and anecdotes of failed bombers to create many of the gags used in the film, but most are absurdly over the top.  For instance the character Faisal, played by Adeel Akhtar, tries to train crows to carry bombs and fly into buildings.  At the end of the film, the group strap bombs under costumes that include a ninja turtle and a kid's cereal mascot.  The pure absurdity of the characters allows for this controversial film to come off as a dark comedy that seems to condemn suicide bombers while simultaneously seeking to understand them. 

The acting is really good throughout the film with sentimental moments mixed in with the truly idiotic. The main character Omar, Riz Ahmed, is a family man who's wife and son seem to be happy that he is going to kill himself.  He has tender moments with his wife and uses the characters from The Lion King to explain his mistakes at the training camp in Pakistan.  He is the brains behind the operation, but is constantly at odds with the more than a little insane Barry, played by Nigel Lindsay.  Barry is almost a caricature as the overly zealous convert to Islam, but is easy the funniest character in the film.  The rest of the cast fill out a roster of misfits that can even make mass murder funny.  These characters could only work with the stellar writing and directing of Morris.

The film is good technically and uses some tricks I have seen before, but plays them in new light.  The most notable is that it mixes in security camera and cell phone footage.  With the shots that appear to be taken by night surveillance on the characters these shots are used to break up the more hilarious parts of the film into a regular series of chuckles.  The pyrotechnics are pretty low key, but it adds to the homemade feel of the bombs.  I can't go into much more detail without ruining a clever plot point or a great visual gag, but the other technical aspects, like the music, fit into the film flawlessly.

This film is not for everyone and makes multiple offensive statements about the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks as well as frequent antisemitic remarks.  In the context of a satire I never found myself being shocked by what was said, but other might not feel the same.  This is a great dark comedy and political satire, but without subtitles people who don't understand the thick British accents may be lost by the fast flying insults.  I would recommend this film to fans of British comedies and those that love political satire such as Lewis Black.