VILNIUS - Thanks in part to Ibsen and Bergman, Nordic films are not well-known for their light comic touch. Long, slow-moving meditations on loneliness, repressed sexuality and the general pointlessness of human existence in a godless universe…that seems a lot more common. Still "Scanorma 2006," Lithuania's Nordic film festival, celebrating movies from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Faroe Islands, will be celebrating comedies this year.
There's "Import/Export," a comedy about a relationship between a Norwegian man and a Pakistani woman, sure to play on the old Western-Muslim rifts of recent years. Another tale of cross-cultural difficulties, "Oh Happy Day," this one about the relationship between a Danish countrywoman and a black gospel preacher, plays on similar themes. If nothing else, the movie is sure to have a good soundtrack.
"Babette's Feast," a classic film from the mid-'80s about two strict Protestant spinsters who enjoy one incredibly sensuous French dinner in their old age, is a weirdly touching tale. Seeing a group of self-denying, but gentle-hearted country people lose themselves in a cooked giant tortoise and fine red wine for the first time in their lives, may not sound like the most riveting film ever made, but it's somehow incredibly watchable. There's no sex in the movie, but you somehow feel fully massaged by the end of the whole thing.
Not all the movies are comedies. A 1993 adaptation of "Hedda Gabler," the Ibsen play about the queen bee, the bitch of all bitches, will also feature. For those of you who forgot the play from high school, it's about a woman so bored by her bourgeois existence, she acts out by destroying those around her most capable of finding happiness.
A documentary about Ibsen himself, "The Lion 's Henrik Ibsen," featuring a series of monologues from Fridtjof Saheim may prove somewhat educational.
"Frozen City," a Finnish film about the disintegration of a marriage is a brutally depressing tale. Director Aku Lauhimies purposefully models his shots of modern-day Helsinki on Martin Scorsese's take on New York in "Taxi Driver." There is little to no reprieve in "Frozen City." We watch a man fall deeper and deeper into despair and madness, and that awful, pathetic sex scene at the end of the film doesn't help. It's a meditation on divorce, about the experience of failure such an event brings.
"Sons," is the tale of a young man who seeks to take retribution on a brutal child molester. There's another, little film that deals with child molestation 's as well as the terrible tragedy of a stillborn birth, "Harry's Daughters." When the Scandinavians do drama, they make sure you question every reason for your existence. Christ people, get a sunlamp.
So, no, the Scandinavian dramatists are not always the best at things like, you know, laughing, or being happy. But hey, we can all enjoy a good miserable tragedy every now and then. As the wise man once said, "You can walk out of 'Oedipus Rex' whistling a happy tune." Or Hedda Gabler.
"Scanorama 2006"
Vilnius 's Runs until Nov. 16
Kaunas 's Nov. 17-23
Klaipeda 's Nov. 24-30
More info: www.eb.lt
