What if you took the premise of the Seinfeld episode “The Fire,” doused it in Scandinavian seriousness (though still with a sense of humor, but of a more wry, subdued flavor), and made it about marriage? That would be an inelegant but accurate descriptor for Force Majeure, Sweden’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film for this year’s Academy Awards. It’s a low-pitched but potent dramedy about familial tensions.
All of us run “What would I do if x extreme situation happened to me” scenarios through our heads every so often, and usually, we’re very kind to our hypothetical actions. But at the beginning of a skiing vacation in the French Alps with his wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and their two children, Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) is faced with such an opportunity, and performs woefully short of satisfactory. A controlled avalanche tumbles toward the family while at lunch, and when it looks like it will overtake them, Tomas cuts and runs, abandoning them without a second thought. Needless to say, Ebba finds this more than a little disquieting. Over the rest of the week, a push-and-shove of passive and active aggression unfolds between Tomas and Ebba.
This is undoubtedly one of the worst date movies to slide down the slope in a while. As the film demonstrates, the avalanche scene and its fallout is the kind of “what if” that worms its way into one’s skin. After a tense evening with Tomas and Ebba, another couple is rent with resentment as they argue over whether the man would have done the same as Tomas in his shoes. It’s one of those things that’s plainly ridiculous on its face, and yet to engage it is to become deeply invested. Truly a no-win prospect.
This isn’t really a battle of the sexes, though, so much as it is a battle of gender expectations. After spending a long time in denial that he did anything wrong at all (of course), Tomas spirals into a void of masculine despair. It’s uncomfortable and quite funny to watch, as he careens from one absurd brush with dude ego bruising to another. Ebba, meanwhile, flounders as well. She’s also wrapped up in how men and women are supposed to act, and she isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do if her husband can’t be counted on to fulfill the role of protector.
The movie nestles itself in uncertainty, hanging the marriage at its center in a place as precarious as the ski resort, nestled in the middle of these beautiful yet imposing mountains. Most shots are static, kept at a seated level, not even moving to keep actors’ heads in frame when they stand up. The story is split into five parts, each covering one day of the vacation, and every night, the sounds of explosions setting off more of those damnable controlled avalanches shepherd us from one act to the next. Most of the non-diegetic music in the film plays during these transitions as well, booming and ominous classical chords. This is a very quiet war movie.
Force Majeure concludes with a pair of scenes edged with a breathtaking sense of danger. The first appears to vindicate Tomas, but the second reveals that Ebba doesn’t really seem to have confidence in him anymore, while also giving her an unexpected reaction to perceived danger. The war seems to end in an odd detente. As long as we’re trapped by our own heads, there’s no peace of mind. But good luck with changing that part of human nature.
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