“Oslo, August 31”
In 1963, Louis Malle made what is generally considered one of the great depressing movies: The Fire Within, about a suicidal man wandering Paris in search of reasons to go on living and finding none. I saw the movie when I was a teenager, and while I tried very hard to appreciate its mood of grim despair, I couldn’t identify at all. The protagonist’s despondency felt vaguely absurd to me–both sourceless and self-indulgent–and by the end I’d written the movie off as just another hunk of chic French fatalism.
I haven’t seen it since, but I suspect if I re-watched it today it might speak to me a bit more. Not that I’m suicidal or even unhappy now, but I’m the same age as the protagonist–mid-30s–and I can better appreciate how existential anxiety inevitably creeps in as you approach middle-age. Prior to your 30s, you’re still finding yourself, and that alone is enough to instill purpose and direction. But once you’ve got things more or less together, what then? Where do you draw meaning from now?
The new Norwegian film, Oslo, August 31, is a loose adaptation of Malle’s film (itself an adaptation of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle’s 1931 novel Le Feu Follet), and I found it much easier to connect with, not just because it comes at the right time for me, but because it’s contemporary and contains more immediately relatable attitudes. Also, it’s not a wallow: though the material is gloomy, the movie itself is pungent and vibrant, with a bunch of convincingly lived-in performances and a strong sense of local colour. After a brief prelude–archival footage of 1970s Oslo accompanied by adult voices reminiscing about their childhoods–we meet Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), a 34-year-old writer contemplating suicide. Standing at the edge of a pond, he fills his pockets with stones, then picks up a boulder and walks into the water à la Virginia Woolf. But after submerging for a few seconds, he surfaces again, coughing and gasping; something in him refuses to let go just yet.
As it turns out, Anders is on day-leave from rehab, and he spends the next 24 hours wandering Oslo looking up old friends and acquaintances, presumably in the hope they’ll inspire him to live again. (Either that, or he just wants one last look around before he goes.) We don’t learn much about Anders–all we know for sure is he was a promising academic who became a junkie; his girlfriend subsequently left him; his sister refuses to see him; and his parents are selling their house in order to pay off his debts. The 38-year-old director, Joachim Trier (Reprise), is more or less using Anders as a tour guide–a lantern to illuminate a whole generation’s psychic tremors. With each visit, Anders’ friends confide how they, too, feel at loose ends, and they readily spill their own anxieties.
There’s nothing remotely new about mid-life ennui, of course, but the specifics have changed since Malle’s era, and the immediacy of Trier’s film makes it all feel fresh. It’s especially good at illustrating how friendships can dissolve in one’s thirties: how the old topics of conversation pall or dry up, how the roles we fulfill for each other outlive their utility. The ending is something of a disappointment–it feels obligatory, and it has the effect of shutting down the conversation rather than opening it up. Still, the movie gives voice to feelings that too often go unexpressed, and it helps you see your own life a little more clearly. See it on a drizzly Sunday afternoon.
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Scott MacDonald writes about cinema for Toronto Standard.
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