comment #1

MAGGA says ...

In terms of style, Reprise would have been at its freshest in the early sixties and in French, but it's a really good film, the only time in my lifetime I've been proud of my country's cinema. It's very nouvelle vague, they even go to Paris for large portions of the film, but it's a perfect desciption of the lives and thoughts of early-twenty-somethings in the west of Oslo. It made it clear that our county's obsession with American culture is antithetical to describing who we are. Granted, it simply stole the middle-european cinematic heritage rather than inventing something new, but the characters and environments are honestly captured and it has a certain playfulness to it. The only thing that makes it slightly dated is Le Tigre playing at a party, but I somehow suspect that the absence of even more recent electro-pop won't bother you too much. Please check it out, I'd love to read your take on it.

comment #2

Doug Pratt says ...

Three great movies that sat on the shelf a very long time (I'm sure there's others, but these come to mind immediately):

Orson Welles' Othello
Ripley's Game
Kidnapped/Rabid Dogs

comment #3

BurmaShave says ...

I'm not prepared to join you and Ebert in declaring RIPLEY'S GAME a great movie, but Malkovich is phenomenal in it. Also didn't CITY OF GOD take quite a long time to see it's stateside wide release?

comment #4

Karsten says ...

My countryman MAGGA has quite perfectly described Reprise's style and aesthetic look, - I'll not delve further into that.

Please Jeffrey, don't let "the idea of seeing a "new" film that was in its prime vintage state 22 months ago" be the reason for not seeing this film. Reprise is a rare, rare film - one of those films that can be remembered as one's own memory of people and situations and emotions. It is tenderly touching on themes of youth and ambition, displaying an exquisite visual style that never, never, interferes with the characters... rather, the narrative and way the film is made (especially its brilliant cinematography and editing), is infact a representation of who these boys and The Girl are.

I've read your column for many years... and for the first time I feel utterly compelled to insist that you see this film - and if you regret it, I'll personally send you... uhm... another Norwegian film! Heh.

Ok, so anyway, I just... I just... love this film, and I know many others do. I know NY based blogger/distributor Filmbrain does (though he has yet to write about it). I know Manohla Dargis embraced it (last paragraph here). And thousands of young European film fans on web sites in another language than English.

I can't wait to read about what Jeffrey Wells might discover in this film.

comment #5

Arizona Joe says ...

"Ripley's Game" was diverting, but certainly not great. Malkovich playing a sociopath again, with a neatly compartmentalized life. He sets those bear traps or man traps around his house. A sane, rational human being behaving like a lunatic. I know, it's a movie.

"Ripley's Game" was a much better film than "The Talented Mr. Ripley" because Malkovich has a talent for menace. Matt Damon is an All American whatever, not a sociopath.

It's interesting that Norwegians post here. How many of us Americans have done so on a site from a different country, in a different language?

"Reprise" is worth a Netflix listing, easy. It sounds so much better than the usual American "88 Minutes."

comment #6

thasos says ...

"Reprise" is a tedious upper-middle brow feel-good comedy. Overly precious about its characters. Bah. I cringe when I think about foreigners seeing it and thinking all Norwegians are preening, boring brats. It goes off a cliff when it deals with a character's nervous breakdown. It's phony. I just sat there going, "Bullshit. They don't know what they're doing. This is a fake and insincere poetry writer's idea of mental illness. They just put it there because it looks good in a movie." Manohla Dargis likes it? Maybe I should take another look at it. And I would of course love to hear Wells' take on it.

Norwegian cinema needs all the help it can get, of course, and I'm glad it's getting released. It might feel exotic to people in other markets. And since they don't know the language, they won't hear the dialogue sound so phony. Among other things.

And as far as the Tigre song is concerned ... hey, it's probably the most famous song they could afford to license.

comment #7

MAGGA says ...

Thasos, I was a little dissapointed that yet another Norwegian movie had a character having mental suffering (Hollywood movies directed by Norwegians include Mozart and The Whale and Prozac Nation, and Insomnia is remade from a Norwegian film, so the trend extends to our exported talents as well), but I didn't find the dialogue problematic at all. It's real Frogner-speak (the part of Oslo where the story mostly takes place) as far as I can tell. As for reflecting the people of Norway, 1) by that logic we would have to assume all Americans throw great one-liners at each other at all times and always wear mekeup in bed and 2), Scandinavians do have a very melancholic spirit in general, which is well reflected by Bergman, Von Trier etc.

I made a point about budgets in different markets a while ago, and since "Reprise" could afford two extra shooting days by not using twenty seconds of "Lady In Red" on the car stereo in one scene, Le Tigre does seem to be the most expensive song they could license. It's a great song, though, and my only point was that it was very "mid-noughties Oslo-party", thereby dating the film a little, but again, I doubt Jeffrey Wells would "rebel against" something like that.

comment #8

adaml says ...

Ripley's Game is borderline crap. Just a dull, interminable wait for something to happen, except when it did it wasn't very interesting. The energy and knock-out performances of Minghella's adaptation were sorely missed. Malkovich is clearly a good actor but Damon was amazing. I think I also prefered seeing the younger Ripley anyway. Just seemed way more interesting in terms of him struggling with his sexuality, fitting in and being a somebody. Maybe I just love The Talented Mr Ripley a bit too much. Saw it a couple of months ago then when Minghella died, watched it again that evening. Just an amazing film.

comment #9

thasos says ...

"Ripley's Game" is fun and cheap. "Talented" is art. I love someone taking what's essentially a piece of pulp and giving it the high literature treatment.

Reprise: Hm. Yeah, maybe it's not so much the dialogue as the way it's spoken. I've not seen the movie since it came out IN THE STONE AGE, and seeing the American trailer now reminded me just how much I disliked the actor's delivery. Those first words in there, for example, they just sort of fall out of his mouth like rabbit turds, he SO doesn't mean any of it, the fake hemming and hawing and stammering. Ugh.

I don't know how a film can not, eventually, get dated, when it features contemporary music in party settings. The best one can hope for is that the movie will not seem horrifyingly anachronistic in the first six months of its release. Like the strip club scene in "Closer" where they play "Smack my bitch up". TWICE!

MAGGA: the guy with the apartment in Sofienberg sent me an email today, he said it was okay if we dropped by to see the place Friday at seven-ish, will you be back in Oslo by then? You should, cause it looks cool and the guy seems alright. I'm going to see the other place (Rosenhoff) tomorrow, I'll give you a call shortly after that.

comment #10

MAGGA says ...

Uhm, yeah, that must be really interesting for the readers of this site. I have a phone, you know... Guess that means Motorpsycho on Friday,The Villa on Saturday, Frank Znort Quartet on Sunday and Einstyrzende on Monday. My liver and wallet will never recover. And yeah, "Talented" is a stunning movie.

comment #11

TedM says ...

Reprise was Norway's entry in 2006 for the Academy Awards. (The year of Lives of Others and Pan's Labyrinth) and the film screened at New Directors/New Films in Spring 2007. The movie is actually pretty good and one that is worth a look. And come on, Jeff, last year's Assassination of Jesse James (which was one of the year's best IMHO) sat around for 2 years before it was released. With the way smaller distribution companies are having to fight for release space, it's not a surprise it might take a foreign film a couple of years to get released.

comment #12

thasos says ...

"Jesse James" sat on a shelf? Really?

I kinda get what Wells means, but a Norwegian movie coming out in the US two years after it premiered in Norway is not like Sidney Pollack's "Jesus Christ Superstar" being bumped to March or something. It's a brutally hard market, just getting there is a reason to pay attention.

I'm trying to think of good American movies that took forever to reach cinemas, but I can't think of any. "Eye see you", anyone?

A really fantastic Norwegian movie is "Zero Kelvin" ("Kjærlighetens Kjøtere") by Hans Petter Moland. You dug "The Beautiful Country," right, Wells?