Sixty two years ago a brilliant short film was released called the six sided triangle in which Using the eternal triangle as the main theme, the film shows how six countries might deal with the moment a husband returns home unexpectedly to find his wife with a lover, The film also parodies the well known styles of the prominent directors and stars of each country at the time the film was made.In the hilarious nordic version the Swedes are silent in their snow-bound house, as the ticking handless clock fails to tell the time in the pervading gloom, as they carry on with their infidelities even after poison and wild strawberries are consumed.
In his first feature ‘Armand’ the director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel hues closely to this nordic visual style. Long silent closeups interspersed with some surreal hysterical emotional outbursts.
The film tells the story of a mother’s sudden visit to her son’s school, who has been accused of hurting a classmate. No one knows exactly what has happened, so the school management summons the parents to discuss the issue, triggering a heated conflict between them. Elizabeth is a widowed mother who has been brought to her 6-year-old son Armand’s school after a report of an incident. When she arrives, she’s greeted by a junior teacher named Sunna, who is clearly about to get in over her head in a manner she doesn’t fully understand at first. Her superior advises her to handle the sensitive situation without any real concrete guidance, the first of many signs that this film is about people who reduce complex situations to talking points and how truth can shift in the wake of details. The administrators respond to every new piece of information as if it “explains it all”; there’s a sharp commentary buried here about the two-dimensional manner in which powerful people, especially men, handle three-dimensional situations.Elizabeth learns about the situation when his classmate Jon’s parents show up. Elizabeth knows Sarah and Anders well—Jon has even been at her house so Elizabeth could watch him after school. Jon has a story about Armand, one involving abuse and at least the threat of sexual violence. From the beginning, the story doesn’t make sense: not only is Armand not that kind of child. His mother is understandably startled that everyone seems to believe Jon without hearing what Armand has to say, and it’s not accidental that she’s outnumbered on the other side of the room, as if the school is taking dual parents more seriously than the single one. Elizabeth (Reinsve) is excellent throughout, What the story reveals in the end is that the parents culpability in their children’s behavior is more of a factor than the behavior itself. The look and tone of the film while it has its own originality is more understandable once you realize (and this is not to belittle the directors own talent) that he is the grandson of Ingmar Bergman.
290 stars
