Hamsun (1996) - Sydow towers in overlong biopic

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The two big Scandinavian stars are set against a handwritten page on this poster for Jan Troell's Hamsun

Norwegian national author and recipient of the Nobel prize for literature Knut Hamsun develops, with support from his alienated wife, from a nationalist to a Nazi in the period leading up to, during - and after - World War II, which comes with grave consequences for the two.

 

Hamsun is written by Per Olov Enquist (Pelle the Conqueror/Pelle Eroberen (1987)) and co-writer/director/co-cinematographer, Swedish master filmmaker Jan Troell (Here Is Your Life/Här Har Du Ditt Liv (1966)), whose 10th feature it is. It is an adaptation of Thorkild Hansen's (Coast of Slaves/Slavernes Kyst (1967)) non-fiction book Processen mod Hamsun (1978).

The deeply illusory, Norwegian madness that the couple live in in Hamsun is frustrating in a way that makes the viewer want to physically grab them and shake them out of their delusions. Max von Sydow (The Final Enquiry (2006)) is masterly and very credible here, whereas Ghita Nørby (Ulvetid (1981)) by his side seems to have troubles portraying the Nazi wife, and in my opinion Nørby lays too much of her sympathetic self into this part.

Hamsun is especially valuable for historically interested and for those interested in portrayals of troubled, great artists. It is a bit overlong: SPOILER Hamsun waits to die throughout the film, and in the end we also want it for him, if only so the whole ordeal would end. Hamsun is a serious but not emotionally overpowering film from Troell.

 

Related post:

 

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 40 mil. SEK, approximately 3.99 mil. $

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain (but most likely a sizable flop)

[Hamsun was released 19 April (Norway) and runs 159 minutes. The film had been in development many years earlier but failed to find support in Norway due to its controversial topic. It was Danish company Nordisk Film's involvement that finally got Hamsun into production. Shooting took place in the Spring and Summer of 1995 in Norway, including in Oslo. The most expensive scene shot, in which Hamsun's wife Marie witnesses the sinking of the German cruiser Blücher in Oslo Fjord in 1940, was eventually cut from the film. 147,148 paid admission to the film in Denmark, one of its 4 co-producing countries (the other being Norway, Sweden and Germany). It made 50k $ in North America, where it debuted #24 to a 7k $ first weekend in 1 theater. Other release details are regrettably scarce, and this makes it impossible to determine its theatrical status, though I suspect it was a sizable flop. It won a Robert (Danish Oscar) and 4 Guldbagge (Sweden's Oscar), among other honors. It became Denmark's Oscar entry of the year but did not get nominated. Troell returned with 2 documentaries and a documentary short prior to his theatrical return with Så Vit Som En Snö (2001). Sydow returned in Jerusalem (1996); Nørby in Bryggeren (1997, miniseries) and theatrically in Sekten (1997). 1.6k+ IMDb users have given Hamsun a 7.2/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Hamsun?

Hawaii, Oslo (2004) or, Turkeyville, Oslo

♥

 

A man is trapped in a kaleidoscopic image on this poster for Erik Poppe's Hawaii, Oslo

A series of destinies are intertwined in Oslo: A woman who is attempting suicide. Two orphan boys. A mentally disabled man. A mentally ill man. A couple with a baby that's dying. But really we focus on two 25 year-olds, who meet again after 10 years, because they agreed as teenagers to marry ten years into the future.

 

Hawaii, Oslo is written by Harald Rosenløw-Eeg (The Wave/Bølgen (2015)), with story contribution from co-writer/director Erik Poppe (Schpaaa (2005)).

Aside from the improbabilities this unromantic, unfunny and depressing film offers a slow and pretentious narrative without a single appealing character in it. Hawaii, Oslo is a multi-plot, fate-crossing turkey of a rare Norwegian breed.

 

Poppe gives an interview about his next film in this video

 

Cost: Est. 20 mil. NOK, or approximately 2.2 mil. $

Box office: 2 mil. $

=  Huge flop (returned 0.90 times its cost)

[Hawaii, Oslo premiered 26 August (Norwegian International Film Festival) and runs 125 minutes. Shooting took place in Oslo, Norway. The film was quite successful in Norway, where it sold 168k tickets. In Denmark it sold just 811. 98.3 % of the film's recorded gross is from Norway, with the remainder coming from the Netherlands. It won 2/4 Amanda awards. Poppe returned with Troubled Water/deUsynlige (2008). 4.8k+ IMDb users have given Hawaii, Oslo a 7.0/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of Hawaii, Oslo? 

The Heroes of Telemark (1965) - Excitement abounds in boy's dream K. Douglas war adventure

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A fabulous painted poster full of scenes of drama and action for Anthony Mann's The Heroes of Telemark

The story of how the German lead on the nuclear front during World War II in their hydro plant in Norway was stopped in the last second by Norwegian resistance fighters and British soldiers.

 

The Heroes of Telemark is written by Ben Barzman (Oasis (1955)), Ivan Moffat (Giant (1956)) and Harold Pinter (Reunion (1989)), based on the novels Skis Against the Atom (1953) by Knut Haukelid and But for These Men (1962) by John Drummond, and directed by Anthony Mann (Dr. Broadway (1942)).

Kirk Douglas (Spartacus (1960)) is a fantastic scientist/old pig here, who only thinks of himself, but who (of course) transforms into the greatest hero of the Telemark nonetheless. (Telemark is a region in Southern Norway.) As a Norwegian he is, naturally, incredibly unbelievable, and his greased-up hairdo doesn't move a quarter of an inch throughout the truth-based action adventure.

At one moment black and white footage of planes are placed in the film in what comes off as a silly ploy. But otherwise this is a highly thrilling war movie in the vein of The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Where Eagles Dare (1968). It may be second to those films, but The Heroes of Telemark has a rare and exciting cross-country skiing chase that puts the nerves on alert!

 

Related posts:

Anthony Mann: El Cid (1961) - Charlton Heston unites Spain in Mann's glorious epic 

Cimarron (1960) - A fine epic western settler adaptation 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 5-5.6 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 1.65 mil. $ (North-American rentals; according to Variety, 1967)

= Uncertain

[The Heroes of Telemark premiered 23 November (London) and runs 130 minutes. Shooting took place from November 1964 - ? in England and Norway, including in Oslo. The North-American rental gross listed above says little about the actual box office gross. The film was among the 15th highest-grossing of the year in the UK. William Darby's Anthony Mann biography records that the film made "modest box office business". Mann returned with A Dandy in Aspic (1968). Douglas returned in The Lucy Show (1966, TV-series) and theatrically in Cast a Giant Shadow (1966); Richard Harris (Ravagers (1979)) in The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966). 7.1k+ IMDb users have given The Heroes of Telemark a 6.5/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of The Heroes of Telemark? 

Out Stealing Horses/Ut og Stjæle Hester (2019) - Moland's vivid, nature-set adaptation drama

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+ Norwegian Movie of the Year

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

Here is a video from the film's premiere in Berlin

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.]

What do you think of Out Stealing Horses?

Film Excess' 5th birthday movie masterpiece: Hunger/Sult/Svält (1966) - Oscarsson leaves you breathless in Carlsen's impressionist masterpiece

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Per Oscarsson lifts his hat for us on this ominously discolored poster for Henning Carlsen's Hunger

A man by the name of Pontus is an aspiring writer, who is becoming increasingly desperate with hunger in Kristiania [now known as Norway's capital Oslo] in 1890. His Achilles heel, however, is also his own over-developed pride, which makes him give away the few kroner he acquires now and then to others in need.

Hunger is an adaptation of Norwegian master writer Knut Hamsun's (Pan (1894)) semi-autobiographical, same-titled 1890 novel, written by Peter Seeberg (Hjulet (1967), based on his novel) and Danish master co-writer-director Henning Carlsen (A Happy Divorce/Un Divorce Heureux/En Lykkelig Skilsmisse (1975)). It is a complex and serious film that can be seen again and again. It is equally amazing every time.
Pontus is a miserable wretch, and you can't help but feel for him in the guise of Per Oscarsson (Polisen som Vägrade Ta Semester (1984), miniseries): At turns highly sensitive and going mad, he tries to uphold his dignity but the painful starvation drives out his polemical side and hallucinations. Oscarsson's performance here will leave you breathless; it stands tall as one of the all-time greatest actor's performances in cinema. You are not likely to ever see anyone portray the effects of hunger with more potency than he achieves here.
Hunger is shot stunningly in B/W by Carlsen himself, and its atmosphere and beautiful lighting are beyond reproach. Hunger is a striking, deeply affecting impressionist major work of art as well as a high-point in Scandinavian film, a masterpiece of the highest integrity.

Related posts:


Henning Carlsen: Memories of My Melancholy Whores/Memoria de Mis Putas Tristes (2011) - Carlsen signs out with a dubious adaptation

Previous Film Excess birthday movie masterpieces: Film Excess' 4th birthday movie masterpiece: From Here to Eternity (1953) - Zinnemann, Taradash and Jones' Hawaii-set classic
Film Excess' 3rd birthday movie masterpiece: Anatomy of a Murder (1959) - The courtroom movie to rule them all
Film Excess' 2nd birthday movie masterpiece: The King's Speech (2010) - Hooper's soaring, royal masterpiece about overcoming human frailty

Film Excess' 1st birthday movie masterpiece: Broadway Danny Rose (1984) or, Keep Your Heart

Watch the hypnotic opening scene of the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[Hunger premiered 11 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 111 minutes. It was the first co-production between Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Shooting took place in Oslo, Norway. Oscarsson starved himself and walked a very long distance to the shooting in order to get into character. Many of the streets shown in the film do no longer exist. The film reportedly sold a measly 3,951 tickets in Carlsen's native Denmark. It was released in the three producing countries, Finland, USA and Australia initially, but its box office performances are unlisted. Oscarsson won the Best Actor award in Cannes, and the film was Denmark's bid for the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars, but it was not nominated. The film additionally won a National Board of Review award, a Guldbagge (Sweden's Oscar) for Oscarsson and two Bodil awards (Danish film critics' awards). Carlsen returned with People Meet and Sweet Music Fills the Heart/Människor Möts och Ljuv Musik Uppstår i Hjärtat (1967). Oscarsson returned as a guest in The D.T.'s/Myten (1966) and with real parts in Patrasket (1966, TV movie) and ABC Stage 67 (1966, TV-series) and theatrically in Here Is Your Life/Här Har Du Ditt Liv (1966). 2,359 IMDb users have given Hunger a 7.9/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Hunger?

Blind (2014) - Vogt's artistic debut about blindness makes its audience confused and depressed

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Lead Ellen Dorrit Petersen (Thelma (2017)) exhibits her naked backside on the poster for Eskil Vogt's Blind

A blind woman remembers her boyfriend, when he is away from her, and when he is there, she feels far away from him. Another lonely woman misses her son, when he is not with her, and she seeks a new human connection.

Blind is the feature directing debut for writer-director Eskil Vogt (Oslo, August 31st/Oslo, 31. August (2011), co-writer). It is a depressing Norwegian drama, in which characters are lonely, awkward, disloyal SPOILER and, - as if to make matters worse, - the woman with the son also suddenly and inexplicably becomes blind. The introverted male character guides us thoroughly through his masturbation and porn habits. - But what for? Besides it possibly adding a tangent to the general, grey picture of depressing adult life in Norway, which is projected in Blind.
The blindness that the film deals with certainly makes it more uncomfortable, because audiences unavoidably imagine themselves put in the horrific situation of losing one's vision, and the inevitable everyday results of the handicap: The spots that would go unnoticed, the things we would be walking into; the secrets that might evolve due to our defect, and the distance to the surrounding world. Blind cultivates these issues and in doing so leaves the one-sided impression that life with blindness is only sad, lonely and miserable. The artistic strokes of Vogt's film don't save it from being uncompelling and depressing.

Related posts:

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Vogt gave en interview at the London Film Festival about Blind that you can watch here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (likely at least a huge flop)
[Blind premiered 17 January (Sundance) and runs 96 minutes. Shooting took place in Oslo, Norway. The film won festival and some critical acclaim but has no box office performances released and is likely to have made very little money and become a huge flop theatrically. This article indicates that it was also a box office disappointment in Norway, where it had sold some 6k tickets after two weeks. The film was nominated for two Sundance awards, winning Vogt a screenwriting prize, nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize, won a distribution prize at Berlin International Film Festival, an AFI Fest nomination and 4 out of 7 nominations at the Norwegian Amanda Awards. Vogt has focused on screenwriting since the film; he has written for countryman Joachim Trier's latest two films, Louder Than Bombs (2015) and Thelma (2017). Blind is fresh at 94 % with a 7.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Blind?

Trollhunter/Trolljegeren/Troll Hunter/The Troll Hunter (2010) - Øvredal's original found footage kaiju horror comedy

♥♥♥

 

+ Best Norwegian Movie of the Year

+ Best Found Footage Movie of the Year

 

A Kaiju-size monster suggestive, rough-and-tumble poster for André Øvredal's Trollhunter

 

Three enthusiastic youth graduates from a university want to document bear hunting in Norway, when they discover something far more exciting: A taciturn macho veteran, who hunts trolls in the forests of the country for a covert security branch of the government!

You venture out with Trollhunter with some doubts, because the three youths are deeply uninteresting, and because their almost unbelievably amateurish recordings are cut together in a very high pace. This, however, is done with the justification that we then arrive faster to the forest, the night, the hunter - and the trolls. - Which certainly hooked me nonetheless!

Otto Jespersen (Børning (2014)) as the hunter and Torunn Lødemel Stokkeland (Løvekvinnen (2016)) in a smaller part as a veterinarian give impressively straight-faced, believable performances, and together with the hilarious Norwegian troll names, (some of which are invented for the film, I suspect), they raise the laugh-factor which is sizable, (especially so for Scandinavians.) Fun is had from the veterinarian's grotesque care gene, (which even extends to include trolls!), and the ultimate shame for a youngster in today's Norway, apparently: Being a Christian. But the humorous aspects could have gone even further, and it is a shame that so much focus is instead put on the moronic students, heightened but not unlike versions of the trio of youth filmmakers in the modern spearhead for the found footage genre, The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The trolls and the effects in general are well-made; the ending a little flat (perhaps not for Norwegians!) The film is a curio gem. It is written and directed by André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)). Fun fact: As of 2016, the film is mislabeled on IMDb as a documentary!

 

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 3.5 mil. $

Box office: 5.3 mil. $

= Big flop

[Trollhunter was released October 29 and runs 103 minutes. Filming took place in Western Norway.  The film opened #71 to a 5k $ weekend in one theater in North America, where it peaked in 21 theaters at place #42 and grossed 253k $ (4.8 % of the total gross). Its biggest market by far was its native Norway with 3.9 mil. $ (73.6 %). Before North America, the 2nd biggest market was the UK with 0.7 mil. $ (13.2 %). Deadline.com has reported that Chris Columbus' company 1492 has acquired the rights to an American remake, although nothing has materialized yet. Trollhunter is certified fresh at 82 % with a 6.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Trollhunter?

Dead Snow/Død Snø (2009) or, Nazis Awake!

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+ Best Gore Movie of the Year + Best Norwegian Movie of the Year

Yup, Tommy Wirkola's Dead Snow is a movie about Nazi zombies that wake up out of the Norwegian winter landscape to eat humans

QUICK REVIEW:

7 younger Norwegians meet in a remote cabin in the beautiful, snow-covered high North. But the girl who was supposed to arrive on skis never shows up, and the snow turns out to carry an ugly surprise for them: A vicious army of Nazi zombies!

The idea of Tommy Wirkola's (Witch Hunters (2013)) Dead Snow is a wild one. But during the first long period of the film, the Norwegians seem more like clones of the inhabitants of the American youth cabin-horror genre, who are driven very near pastiche, - although the scene with the old man in the cabin is cool. The references are there in abundance, but not all of them are equally auspicious. This makes the film seems at times inelegant... But!
Once the gore element finally gets started, Dead Snow really catches up, and the last half hour is a regular fest.
Wirkola wrote the script with Stig Frode Henriksen (Kill Buljo: The Movie (2007)), who is also one of the film's main actors, portraying Roy.

Related post:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

In lieu of the Dead Snow trailer, which is not currently available on Youtube, here's the trailer for Wirkola's big Hollywood movie Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Cost: 0.8 mil. $
Box office: 1.9 mil. $
= Box office flop
[Dead Snow premiered in North America at Sundance, where IFC Films bought the distribution rights. It was released there on just a few screens, where it made 46k $. The film made almost all of its gross, 1.6 mil. $ (84 % of the total gross) in Norway. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the last two it was released in: Spain with 0.1 mil. $ (5.3 %) and Russia with 85k $. Wirkola followed the film up with Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014), not seen by Film Excess yet. Dead Snow is fresh at 67 % with a 6 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Dead Snow? 
Other obscure zombie movies that you'd recommend?

Oslo, August 31st/Oslo, 31. August (2011) - Trier's tough-as-nails existentialist drug addict drama

♥♥♥♥♥

1 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Actor: Anders Danielsen Lie (lost to Jack Black for Bernie)

+ Best Norwegian Movie of the Year
+ Best Drug-themed Movie of the Year

Anders Danielsen Lie on deep water in Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st

Anders was an aspiring journalist, but instead became a drug addict. Now he is allowed his first visit out of the rehabilitation center, and he visits old friends and acquaintances and goes to a job interview. But to his dismay he finds that as a 34 year-old man, he has nothing.

Great Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier (Reprise (2006)) here serves an existentialist, anxiety-provoking, almost horrifying story without any psychedelic or narrative sleights. Oslo, August 31st is observant and incredibly sober.
The film contains strong scenes between two people; strong because the stakes are towering for our protagonist. Anders Danielsen Lie (Reprise) is unmatched in the lead. The film is seamlessly photographed (by Jacob Ihre (Louder than Bombs (2015)) and scored (by Torgny Amdam (High Point (2014), short) and Ola Fløttum (Force Majeure/Turist (2014))) with seemingly great insight into the environments it portrays. SPOILER As could be expected from the fatalistic tone of the film's title as well as its opening montage, Oslo, August 31st ends as a tragedy, swept in Norwegian nihilism in a morbidly long death-shot. It is, however, the following shots of the city's unregistering continuation that gives the ending its heavy, heavy weight. This really is a very hard film.
A fire extinguisher gets introduced on a bike ride, which seems only to be there to loan the film some different, cinematic shots, which is a little curious but fine.
The suspense of the film relates to Anders' life. Only for a few seconds did I have reason to think, whether that might be a bit slight for an entire feature. Trier wrote the screenplay with Eskil Vogt (Blind (2014)), based on the novel Will O' the Wisp (1931) by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (The Man on Horseback/L'Homme à Cheval (1943)).
Oslo, August 31st is an incredibly good film and surely one of the best recent Norwegian films. Trier is out with his first English-language film at the moment, Louder than Bombs, a drama with Jesse Eisenberg and other prominent actors.


Related posts:
 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
 

Anders Danielsen Lie's look speaks volumes in Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: At least 1.4 mil. $
= Uncertainty
[But most likely a huge flop. Norway is perhaps the world's most expensive country, and 1.4 mil. $ basically just buys you a cup of coffee there. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes. The budget was low but isn't publicized, and the box office result is based on the figures from 9 countries, publicized on Box Office Mojo. The film may have gone to other countries as well. It was biggest in Norway, where it made an impressive 0.9 mil. $, and it also was a minor hit in France with 0.2 mil. $. It made 0.1 mil. $ in the US, where Roger Ebert named it the 9th best film of the year.]

What do you think of Oslo, August 31st?