Den Brysomme mannen - Jens Lien (2006)

Den Brysomme mannen (aka The Bothersome Man or Norway of life)
From Jens Lien





What an outstanding movie, it is very very good
To summarize it without spoiling it too much, this is the story of Forty-year-old Andreas who arrives one day in an unknown city. he doesn't remember how he got there but seems to be expected. He is offered a job, a wife, everything just seems wonderfull there: everybody is nice, everybody seem happy. But soon he realises that something is just not right: everything is too neat, too pleasant, food has no taste, people are superficial and have absolutelly no emotions, everyone is superficial, life itself is superficial, if you drink you dont get drunk. Where da fuck is he?? The movie is original from beginning till end, it has a very particular atmosphere, everything is done to make you feel that life there is just cold and boring: the colors, the furnitures, the little details. The director actually said he wanted to recreate a bit the atmosphere of Roy Andersson's movies. After just seeing Songs from the Second Floor, I can defenetly see the similarities in the estetic, but the rest is very different. It is a mix of genres with a bit of a fantasy basic and in the same time a lot of dark humour which made me laugh out loud (and that doesn't happen a lot when I watch a movie alone). The music is also nice. A pure enjoyment to watch!
If there is one I can advise you to watch out of all the movies I saw latelly, this is the one

Quote :

Imagine a world, in which everyone treats anyone nicely, no foul word is ever uttered, office bickering is nonexistent, and your boss invites the office crowd regularly to self-cooked dinners where you can chat about latest interior design styles. Everything is neat, pleasant - well, just nice. In other words: you are in hell. After being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, mid-thirties Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvaag) starts a new job as a book-keeper in a small, clean city. From the beginning he feels foreign in this proper, impersonal world of superficial kindness, surrounded by pleasant but lifeless interior architecture and likewise colleagues. Food tastes of nothing, drinks don't get you drunk, no children anywhere; after initial steps of fitting in, Andreas searches for ways to escape the bland new world. He doesn't know where he came from anymore, but still remembers rich tastes, true feelings - anything beyond the non-committal flatline life he's leading now. THE BOTHERSOME MAN resonates ideas of Huxley and Kafka, but here the cruelty is the omnipresent noncommittal neatness. Unlike PLEASANTVILLE this is not about narrow-minded bigotry, more a fable of our urban free-world civilisation of fitting in. It mostly reminds one of the ingenious FIGHT CLUB scene, in which Edward Norton walks through a mock-IKEA catalogue. Spiced with macabre humour, this Scandinavian laconic tale convinces on every level: story, characters, and relevance. A true screen gem.