The end of August is always sad, it’s the beginning of school

Oslo, August 31st

When I give out a recommendation, I try to be as objective as possible, and think about what the person I recommend it to would feel about it, or what he or she would want to see. When I read a recommendation, I especially love the ones that come from the bottom of someone’s heart, when they say “Watch it, I thought it was sooo awesome!” I feel more confident about watching a film whose recommendation came with passion, yet when I give out a recommendation I am afraid of exactly that. Is this weakness of character?

Gorp more or less randomly recommended “Oslo, August 31st” and he didn’t even say that he loved it. He merely said he liked it, that it was the kind of “one day in life” films that he has a weakness for (I totally understand, because I do too) and that it was a great slice of life. But today, somehow that was exactly what I was looking for – a simple but somehow beautiful film. Strangely enough, “Oslo, August 31st” is not normally a film I would like. There is something utterly unrealistic and dislikable about the film, almost like an uncanny valley. They show a city which strangely looks like a German city, yet does not feel German at all. They show a main character we can all kind of relate to, yet he feels very individual in an unrealistic way. Certainly your average drug addict did not read Adorno nor plays the piano beautifully nor has a (somewhat) loving and supporting family, or at least someone who claims to be so. The film is about the life about a very specific person, it’s not really a social portrait at all. Yet at the same time we don’t learn enough about his background (besides these tidbits) to feel like he is real, or at least I thought so. In that sense, the movie is the exact opposite of Godard’s “Vivre Sa Vie” which I felt reminded of throughout the film. At the end of Godard’s masterpiece slice of life, I felt like I really got to know Nana and that the film showed everything about her we needed to know.

I also agree with Gorp that especially the beginning of the film was unnecessarily whiny and sheds a rather unpleasant light on the main character. Later on, however, it was a film you could easily immerse yourself into, where the main character drifts from scene to scene, and from person to person. Most interestingly I feel like people have a tendency to tell him their problems, when it is quite apparent that all of those people are just talking to themselves. His problem, to see no future, is shown so beautifully subtly through other people’s banal complains that the film could have done without the explicit whining. I liked the end though, my interpretation is that he overdosed in that last scene. It would make a good end at least.

So yes, please continue recommending films to me. There are a few films I am currently randomly eyeing (I think I already know what I want to see tomorrow), but in general, I am in a phase in which I really like seeing things someone recommended to me.