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Review - The Art Of Negative Thinking
This well received Norwegian black comedy has won awards in Germany Italy and Czechoslovakia, and manages to be both thought provoking and hilarious. Bard Breien deserves most of the credit, he wrote and directed this seamlessly, providing us with comedy and pathos, psychology and farce, in this fast paced and entertaining suburban roller coaster.
Geirr (Fridtjov Saheim) has lost the use of both his legs, and is impotent too. He may have a lovely new house, thanks to his accident insurance, but his inability to come to terms with life as a cripple causes his girlfriend Ingvild (Kirst Eline Torhaug) to take the desperate step of inviting a local positivity group to the house to try and help.
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The fun starts immediately when Geirr reacts by hurling abuse at his guests, then discharging a fire extinguisher at them from the upstairs window, and finally packing a bag and trying to escape down the road in his wheelchair. When he is forced to join in by Ingvild, he is immediately at odds, mentally and physically with the group's therapist Tori (Kjerti Holmen), and the carefully constructed veneer of 'positivity' begins to get stripped away, leaving the group reeling, and us laughing at the clever way the personalities interact.
Its not long before Geirr takes over the group. Marte (Marian Saastad), a paraplegic, and her able bodied, guilt-ridden, ego-centric boyfriend Gard (Henrik Mestad), who is to blame for the accident, join Lillernor (Kari Simonsen), a ruined, pill-popping alcoholic, and the entirely crazy Asbjorn(Per Schanning), a stroke victim who no longer speaks, in entering Geirr's realm of bitter hopelessness, and, thanks to the heavy use of alcohol, hard drugs and Johnny Cash, learn the art of negative thinking. And so do we. Stand out scenes along the way include Lillernor and Asbjorn trying to have sex in the upstairs bathroom, a brilliant Russian roulette sequence, and Marte trying to kill herself by driving her wheelchair over the edge of the patio. Same time next week?
Rating :8/10 Hits all the buttons
Review written by John Franklin : November 2010
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