+ Norwegian Movie of the Year
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| Evocative characters and snaps from Hans Petter Moland's nature-set Out Stealing Horses adorns this poster for the film |
Trond is a widowed man settling into old age, making a hermit's life for himself in the countryside, when he realizes that a neighbor of his out there has a close tie to the fateful summer of his 15th year, when he last saw his father.
Out Stealing Horses is written and directed by Hans Petter Moland (Secondløitnanten (1993)), adapting the same-titled 2003 novel by Per Petterson (In the Wake/I Kjølvannet (2000)).
It is a story that is very much backwards turned, looking towards a distant past; the protagonist's life that summer more than 50 years earlier. Stellan Skarsgård (Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg/God Afton, Herr Wallenberg (1990)) is the old man, whose face is an exceedingly slowly communicating window into him: Words are scarce, but his face shows pain and the urge towards isolation. Fittingly, his actions take place in the deep of winter.
The flashback section of the film, which has more action and pregnancy than the old man scenes, are summer-set at the boy's alienated father's forest abode in Sweden. Rich with nature's details and the wildness of outdoor life and interaction with the elements, the scenes are a joy also because of great acting from young Jon Ranes as the lovely young Trond but also fine work from Tobias Santelmann (Congo (2018)) as his individualist father, Danica Curcic (Silent Heart/Stille Hjerte (2014)) as the mother of his friend Jon, whom his father becomes involved with, and others. The sensual photography is done by Thomas Hardmeier (Thelma (2001)) and Rasmus Videbæk (A Royal Affair/En Kongelig Affære (2012)).
SPOILER There is serious drama at play that summer, as Jon fails to babysit his younger twin brothers, and one accidentally shoots the other with Jon's riffle, leading to trauma and a deeper rift between their parents. More than a few scenes are intensely suspenseful, helped along by expert editing and sound work. For Trond the summer leads him to a long disappointment in his father, whom he so loves, as he never returns to his son, - but apparently favors life with Jon's mother and her sons.
The drama is affecting and compelling, dealing with the long furrows that the formative years and relationship with our parents make in our memories and personalities, which includes our predisposition to repeat their traits and behavior.
Out Stealing Horses is tremendously well-made and engaging to watch, and it would have been a great film was it not for a couple of unexplained story points, which come out as inexplicable story gaps upon scrutiny: SPOILER Why does Trond need to become a hermit 3 years after his wife's tragic passing in a traffic accident? Is it pure - in that case utterly incredibly - coincidence, which leads Trond to once again become neighbor to the very man who 'got' his father due to his mother's loveliness in that forest a half century earlier?
Related post:
Hans Petter Moland: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2019 in films - according to Film Excess
Cost: Reportedly 4.1 mil. €, equaling approximately 4.5 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[Out Stealing Horses premiered 9 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 122 minutes. The producers have regrettably not reported details of its production or theatrical performance openly yet. But it is a Danish-Swedish-Norwegian co-production with popular actors from each country, which should help it reach substantial audiences in its producing countries at least. (It is already done playing in Norway and Sweden.) It is set to open in Hungary and Germany later this fall, and in the US and Netherlands in early 2020. The film has been chosen as Norway's official entry for the Best Foreign Film category at the coming Oscars. It also won 5/10 Amanda award nominations (Norway's Oscar), the Silver Bear in Berlin and other honors. Moland is announced to return with psychological drama Elskede Poona. Skarsgård returned in Chernobyl (2019, TV-series) and theatrically in I'll Find You/Music, War and Love (2019); Ranes does not have a next project announced yet; Santelmann returned in The Love Europe Project (2019), and Curcic in Sjalú, Dagur Kári's new film. 498 IMDb-users have given Out Stealing Horses a 6.8/10 average rating.]
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