[3.4]
Directors are constantly faced with difficult decisions, most of which (at least aesthetically) revolve around the intersection of their intent and execution. Play it safe, with beautiful imagery but easy drama, and you could make a standard ‘good’ film. Or, you could also aim for something more challenging and complex, and fail miserably. What is most frustrating is the film that vacillates between ends: one movie that blows you away with its insights and another movie where you end up bored and baffled over the director’s decisions. FORCE MAJEURE is filled with good ideas, but without a strong vision and focus to cohere all the disparate scenes into an effective whole. Consider, first, the slow-building tension of the first act. After a wonderfully dramatic single-take scene in which an avalanche rushes towards us, filling the screen with white, and forcing the story’s central action (Tomas abandoning his family and fleeing in terror), the narrative begins pulling in differing directions, constantly threatening to disappear completely in a cloud of snow. The slick, austere visuals are generically beautiful, and the perfectly-framed long takes practically scream Euro art house. But while Michael Haneke’s brilliant framing brings clarity to his message, writer/director Ruben Östlund uses it as a crux to force contemplation, to signal to the audience that there is a serious philosophy behind the images. The problem is that the ideas are never followed through, and instead Östlund seems restless to tackle a variety of Big Ideas (masculinity, devotion, responsibility, social structures), so much so that he ends up giving each one short shrift.
While the camera promises insight into the lives of the children, Harry and Vera, they end up as simple props in the story of their parents, Tomas and Ebba. We see plenty of images of the children alone, but these are all surface, revealing no character. We are introduced only briefly to Charlotte, a free-willed, “liberated” woman who seems like she appeared straight out of French film from forty years ago. She has a family back home, but she has come on vacation by herself and her bedroom is seemingly wide open. Ebba expresses shock at this, and we see intimations that she is questioning her accepted role as mother and wife, but this development fizzles out, and by the end, it seems as if Ebba has given up thinking outside of her box. Tomas’ friend Mats and his much younger girlfriend Vera pop into the narrative rather abruptly and linger on, as some sort of counterpoint to our main couple. When Vera confesses that she thinks Mats would act exactly as Tomas did (fleeing first, leaving his family behind), his honor and masculinity are damaged. I wonder why Östlund would include the lengthy bedroom scene between these two, which pretty much repeats the conversations that when on earlier between Ebba and Tomas. It feels a bit too much like padding.
Later, when Tomas and Mats are hanging out by themselves, the film shifts into an exploration of male bonding, with the theme of masculinity coming front and center. In perhaps the second best scene of the film, Mats and Tomas are sitting in deck chairs, enjoying beer, when a young girl approaches Tomas and tells him her friend thinks he’s the best looking man there. Tomas perks up, his ego restored, until the woman returns, and, apologizing, tells him she was mistaken. He’s not The Guy. A wave of embarrassment washes over the men, and Mats almost gets into a fight defending his friend, before the situation is quickly defused. In just a few short minutes, Östlund succinctly and humorously identifies and elaborates on the behavior of the male psyche. The following scene ratchets thing up even further, with a satiric, almost hallucinogenic series of shots featuring young, shirtless men guzzling beer and screaming animal-like under flashing green party lights. It’s the most in-your-face statement on bare masculine behavior, and for a minute, I imagine that the film will now veer into a full-on assault of masculine excess. But no. Östlund quickly moves back into the slow contemplation of earlier scenes, and the hint of raw, dreamlike imagery is forgotten.
The final few scenes veer wildly in multiple directions, and while I appreciate the narrative taking such an unexpected route, the writing hints at a confused collection of notions that Östlund doesn’t know how to bring to fruition. On the final day of skiing, in stormy conditions, Ebba gets separated from the family. As Tomas goes to look for her, leaving his children behind, the scene promises suspense and mystery. But a few minutes later, Tomas reemerges, carrying his wife, his Hero status restored. It’s a patently absurd conclusion (something out of a Hollywood feelgood), and thankfully the film does not end there. Yet, its humorous inclusion is not touched on or elaborated by Östlund, nor is the possibility that Ebba faked her accident to force Tomas’ behavior ever explored. Instead, Östlund moves on to a scene on a bus descending the mountain. Ebba grows increasingly frantic at the driver’s poor skills and finally insists that he stop, so that she can get out. The others on the bus follow her lead (except, notably, for Charlotte), and the bus quickly leaves them, presumably making it down without a hitch (like the avalanche, another disaster averted). Here, Östlund seems to want to draw attention to Ebba’s frame of mind, but then this avenue is extinguished again in favor of Tomas. In the final shot, we see Tomas holding on to son, smoking a cigarette, and leading the stranded busload of passengers down the mountain. It’s a strange conclusion, and while not necessarily unsatisfying, it further exposes the wasted potential of Östlund’s efforts. The clear focus of the original drama frayed uncontrollably, becoming bigger and dealing with a variety of issues and characters. Yet, Östlund fails to keep it all together, and left me desiring a cleaner, clearer exploration of one of his strands of Ideas.
burning retina 