Fuerza mayor

En momentos críticos, las personas reaccionan según tres patrones básicos y, por tanto, se dividen en tres grupos básicos. Las reacciones no se pueden aprender, por lo que a nadie se le puede culpar por pertenecer al grupo A o al grupo C y reaccionar de una manera u otra. Depende de muchas circunstancias. En la película, lamentablemente, todo se intensifica con la presencia de niños en una situación crítica, y lamentablemente, una persona del grupo C es regañada por su esposa por arruinarlo todo. Y en todo eso, involucran a una pareja más y ya tenemos otra gran película del mago del cine sueco. Un espectáculo estimulante. (02.12.2023)

The Scandinavian festival in Mladá Boleslav prepared a real gem for me for one Wednesday evening. The director Ruben Östlund has already convinced me once with the film Play that he can be original and the Force Majeure seemed at least as interesting. The result exceeded all expectations. This is an absolutely precise decomposition of the man/woman relationship and parents/children relationships in one not entirely pleasant situation. It made me sick for a while, but the director softened everything with a lot of good and funny scenes. The actors were also good, and if only the final scene of the dad having a psychotic episode had been a little better, I would’ve been absolutely satisfied. Seen based on the Challenge Tour 2015. (27.04.2015)

Paradies: Schnee. An intense relationship avalanche that rolls around the peaks of Bergman, Trier, Seidl and Andersson and ends (typically for Östlund) with a large and seemingly superfluous thesis, which even in film form presents the role of hypocrisy and falsehood in the construction of reality. While I consider the first 2/3 of the film to be absolutely brilliant in observing details and working with a change of mood, the conclusion, as in the case of Play, feels like an intellectual construct without debates from an extremely clever creator. There are several places where Ruben could cut off the film as a chilling image of intimate collapse and uncertainty, but he prefers to go with the enigmatic metaphor of the collective. Force Majeure is the type of film that can shake confidence in love relationships and accurately capture the fragility and degree of manipulation with which we keep them going. It is also the exact naming of the thin crust under which the distinguished Nordic society locked instincts, which then wants to be heard, with surprising intensity, in an environment full of bizarre human rituals (in this aspect, Force Majeure reminds of Seidl's trilogy Paradise). Confirmation that Östlund belongs to the top echelons of art film. Maybe he just didn't have to emphasize it so much. [80%] (07.10.2014)

When a man falls out of his role... As with an avalanche, even an imperceptible stimulus is enough to trigger a relationship crisis. One selfish act of self-preservation leads to further transgressions and misconduct. Instead of falsely cheerful vacation pictures (the film begins with the staging of one such photograph), we watch the chronicle of a breakup. The demoralising atmosphere of mutual mistrust also sucks in the loved ones of the conflicting parties. This avalanche may not kill anyone, but it won’t make them stronger either. The mountain scenery provides a benchmark for assessing the severity of the problems that the characters face. The setting, the unsettling musical motif and many of the situations depicted (disappearing into the fog, the incompetent bus driver) promise great tragedy, which is the perspective that corresponds to how the head of the family wants to see his failure. What actually unfolds on the screen, however, is an intimate family drama. The voyeuristic, predominantly static camera, which as a matter of principle does not assume the point of view of the characters, does not explicitly lead us to a clear interpretation, but the shot compositions make it clear that the weak link here is not the woman who is being pushed out of the picture, but rather the man who doubts his own masculinity to such an extent that he has to ostentatiously convince himself (through a drinking session with the parameters of a pre-civilisation male ritual) and those around him of it: the attempt at intimacy with his wife, reflected in a mirror, has the same vague contours as Tomas’s status as head of the family. The devastation is accelerated by the fact that both partners desperately lack a sense of detachment, unlike the director, who enjoys demolishing the tense atmosphere of Bergman-esque psychological drama with incursions from worlds that are different in terms of genre (the attack of a child’s drone, the sticker on the door). Thanks to the unwillingness to compromise or to in any way make the characters’ situation easier for them, Force Majeure is an invaluable training video for similarly “calamitous” situations in your own relationship. 80% (23.01.2015)

An interesting relationship drama filmed as a psychological drama of a family taken out of the routine of domestic life and exposed to a test of trust. Its sense of atmosphere created by the editing and selection of musical motifs cannot be denied, as well as the decent acting of unfamiliar actors from the North and, after all, the ability to sometimes strike a nerve. However, I will ultimately not give the film a fourth star because Östlund sometimes gets lost in intellectual theses instead of characterizing the problems of partnership life objectively. Some viewers, including myself, will somewhat wonder about what the author wanted to convey, for example, through the pedestrian descent of hotel guests through mountain switchbacks toward civilization. If the entire conflict is built on a story with an avalanche, then the director misses out on much of human psychology and what constitutes the foundation of partnership relationships. Similar incidents belong to the category of those that can annoy, but just like the fallen avalanche of snow, emotions will soon subside and a sober-minded person will only laugh at them. A much greater danger to partnership cohesion is a hysterical outburst of self-pity, pettiness, and self-contempt, as demonstrated by the film's protagonist facing his wife. They belong to those that can forever change one's perspective on a partner and easily destroy the prospect of continued coexistence. By the way, from the perspective of dramatic structure, it would have been much better for the film to let the viewer balance their sympathies for the actors of the story and keep them undecided as to whose side to ultimately lean toward. Until the mentioned scene, the film prompted thinking, but after that, it was only about taking positions. If I were willing to view the avalanche story as a catalyst for long-simmering dissatisfaction, when a hundred nothings can exhaust and one spark can unexpectedly ignite a barrel of gunpowder, the reactions and actions of all family members would make much more sense. However, Östlund never gave me any indications for that and probably meant it exactly as he filmed it. Overall impression: 60%. (07.10.2014)