An Update For the Page & Joachim Trier's 'Oslo, August 31st'
Joachim Trier's Contribution To A "New-Realism" & An Update for 'An Onion On My Belt'
First, I suppose I'll offer an update for this page. Do feel free to move past this and get to the essay for this post if need be; I simply didn't want to assign an entire post for this fairly short note.
Over the last year or so, it has been difficult for me to have regular output on this page. Part of this is from a somewhat contradictory position I have found myself in. I feel a certain amount of actual posts should be published as to be in line with most other pages. Although, this then leaves me feeling more daunted and actual hinders what I can do. This runs in tandem with my amount of time and my not-so-remarkable health status.
I suppose one thing then to pin for this page—if anyone reads it—is that I won't, and, really shouldn't, aim too hard to have an arbitrary number of posts. Much of the other pages I contrast with do have much shorter posts and are aligned with popular thinking of quantity over quality—not that there isn't quality abound here: I have certainly found some—that coincides with current publishing and marketing ideals which strongly, and not sensibly, favour certain lengths. Essays and columns must be (too) short. Then pop non-fiction books must be (too) long. From what I know, this affects literature as well with what could be otherwise spartan commercial genre novels being then beefed-up, or encouraged as such, with ever more superfluous crap, and we are in an age where the uber-long great novels are more unlikely to be published as the editors and publishers declare it cannot be so and aim to find excess to trim where there may be none or less than deemed.
Anyway, so not doing what I think I should along with my circumstantial factors have clogged things up. What is feasible is around one a month, although I may exceed that at times, and some things may improve—I simply am not going to hold myself to anything. What you will get here is what you will get—my excessive, meandering, and undiluted written traipsing, whether for good or ill.
If one feels so inclined, if I do manage to accrue more financial support through the page, it that may aid matters and allot me more time as is needed. Anyway, I figured I would like to have all this in stone, or—um—computer screen, somewhere at some point, so here it be. Anyway, thanks for sticking it out, for reasons I don't understand. I think things may perhaps improve over the summer and on.
***
As I partook upon writing for the film in question, I initially figured I would write an introduction as to why this film in particular. There were two components: one on a concept of a “new-reality” as it applies to film as a style that is the inverse of my other concept of the “anti-real” or “anti-reality” as to differ from the flawed popular concept of post-truth; and the other was a brief history of Norway's standing in Scandinavian film history, how it has been dwarfed by the output of its neighbours Denmark and Sweden, and Joachim Trier's significance as possibly Norway's first cinematic titan. Well, between the two, they became as long as the actual text that is directly on the film itself; not to mention it would be preceded by my entry on this Substack page as a whole. So, I've cut all of that out. I was intending to write something on the former that stands on its own and only now to offer some form of a preview, for myself as much as the reader, and when—or if—I do, I can bring Trier back into that fold on that matter anyhow, when it's addressed. The component on Trier and Scandinavian cinema is pertinent but perhaps that can be salvaged for later too and something may inspire me to write on Scandinavian film as a whole—maybe with Dreyer or Bergman—or on the success of contemporary Norwegian cinema with the likes of Poppe, Hamer, and Trier. So, I will commence with enacting one of my most frail traits: getting to the point.
***
In Oslo, August 31st the main character is that of Anders, a man in his early thirties who is granted day-leave from an addiction rehabilitation facility on the outskirts of Oslo, primarily for the purpose of conducting a job interview at the office's of a cultural magazine, but also to visit some friends and family. The secondary character is the city itself, Oslo. All other characters stand as tertiary. I'm not being novel in noting this as Dag Sødtholt noted much of this in his analysis in the publication Montages. A key feature of the cinematography is that within the scenes themselves, the focus of the shots weave between focusing on Anders and the city; not to mention that there are notable takes that are solely of the city, some with an overlying narration and some without.
Anders begins his day before leaving the quaint and quite serene rehab clinic amidst the idyllic Norwegian landscape by walking into a body of water as to submerge himself with stones and drown. After a stressful interval, he pops up, not being able to follow through and shuffles back to the old manor that serves as the main facility. He sits through a meeting with fellow residents to discuss their issues and then has a brief meeting with one of the main staff before departing for, what is supposed to be, the day.
Earlier in his ventures he meets up with an old friend, Thomas, and his wife where they live in their flat with their young children. They discuss Anders' dilemma but not with any degree of seriousness and Thomas' pretentious inclinations get the best of him at times throughout their chat as he brings up largely irrelevant philosophical and literary references. The two later go for a stroll in which Anders more fully delves into the state of his malaise, suicidal sentiments, and overall feelings of hopelessness. Thomas incautiously dismisses all such concerns, stating that the suicidal feelings will simply pass, and that he is smart and better off than the other rehab residents and will therefore land on his feet. Thomas ends up complaining about his own banal and minor woes: these include the lack of sex with his wife, his young son's rash, his boredom with his wife's friends, and his overall disinterest with his bourgeois life—this being something he surely would have resented when he was a student.
Anders later spends some time alone in a cafe. Here, in part, the city comes in as from Anders' vantage point as he observes those at random around him. Some young women are making jokes at the expense of suicide. A pair of different young women are seen together with their laptops as one reads a list she had written, possibly for a class. It's a list of her life's aspirations, most of which are mawkish and tawdry, being mainly meaningless and banal aspirations of consumption.
He is to meet with his sister but his sister's girlfriend, Tove, arrives in her stead to meet with Anders. She tells Anders, very sympathetically, that she is instructed to not have Anders enter the family home without escort. The conversation does not last long and is not well resolved.
In a pivotal scene, Anders finally attends the job interview. It initially goes well with Anders being earnest and devoid of pretense, if not a little too stern—but in Norway, that is likely not much of an issue. After the matter of his CV having some large holes, Anders reveals his extended drug use and the interview becomes awkward. He storms out of the meeting and after, in reality, nothing in the day having already gone well, his full descent begins.
He attends a flat-party hosted by a former girlfriend, Mirjam, and attended by numerous old friends and acquaintances. He immediately begins drinking, even though not drinking is also part of his rehabilitation, and he engages in some empty conversations. After a touching interaction with his former girlfriend, who is now living with her current boyfriend, he attempts to kiss her. She doesn't reciprocate the sentiment and also doesn't lash out but Anders is visibly shamed all the same. He enters the bedroom that's been designated the coat-room and goes through the other guest's belongings to steal cash, and abruptly leaves when he's caught by Mirjam.
He ends up at a bar after declining an invitation earlier in the evening from one of the other party attendees. He goes on to drink more there and then more once they go to a dance club. They end up at the swimming pools near Frognerparken and after the other three in his little group—including a pretty young gal who is clearly interested in him—go skinny dipping, he leaves to go to his family home.
There, he sits at the piano and plays part of a Handel suite before abruptly stopping. He goes to a bedroom and with some heroin he scored earlier on with the cash he stole, he injects a large dose, passes out, and the viewer sees his breathing cease.
All the other human characters apart from Anders stand in as mere parties for him to interact with and none stand out much more than any others of having any significant import. As mentioned, this key support role is given to Oslo. This arrives us at what the film is about.
The city is all that surrounds and it stands continuous while indifferent to Anders' plight. There is nothing concrete for Anders to connect with and his impulses lead him further astray while most in his proximity are largely indifferent, aloof, or only superficially there. All that Anders experiences reflects the sombre reality that someone in such a state of suffering may easily endure.
He attends the group-talk seminar and though it may be helpful for some, Anders cannot connect but needs to attend anyway when other methods may prove a greater use of time for him specifically. He meets with his friend Thomas and they both have issue breaking through the facade. Some details are touched on but although Thomas ostensibly cares for him and is supportive, the greatest depths of the matter are largely left out by his actions. He puts more effort to jest on the topic than to offer anything positively tangible. He tells Anders that his suicidal disposition has come before and that it will pass.
He is expected to attend a job interview but cannot avoid the social constraints of ever having someone pry into your life, and although he is largely overtaken by shame and discomfort, he can also, understandably, not play a game and pretend his problems are some minor detail and be nonchalant about it being brought up as to accommodate some larger social standard.
He attends the flat party but is clearly more alone and distant from the world while surrounded by all those people, many familiar, than he is in actual isolation. At one point he has to go through the motions of what a close friend of mine has dubbed “story-time”—while at a party or gathering when someone makes everyone else dive into a tale of remember when—and Anders is in that moment in a void. He is tediously exposed to a wholly uninteresting anecdote from the past and must participate, as if it is a pertinent and noteworthy matter in the present. He has no sense of attachment to this group of people any longer nor in what he does while there. He is in the room but there is only a larger gaping absence as he cannot interface with what is, as far is he in concerned, a non-reality.
What could Anders have done in this situation? The question is well answered by Roger Ebert in one of his final reviews in the last year of his life, in which he also gave the film a glowing four-star review. Ebert states:
I know what he should do. He should leave Oslo, even Norway. With the English that all Norwegians speak, he could live anywhere. He could take any kind of a job, no matter what, and cast his past adrift. His memories of Oslo only inspire regrets. His old friendships are all over. Day after day, he could rebuild his interest in things. The drugs haven't destroyed his body but they have taken away his hope. He could walk and walk and walk, and one day even pick up a book or go to a movie. But Anders has no faith in a new beginning. The last sound we hear from him is a sigh.
Ebert is, in essence, correct. He needed to finish some more of his treatment and then depart. To Bergen or Trondheim, or Copenhagen, or London, or Berlin—almost anywhere. The problem is that it isn't so simple for him to draw those conclusions. After the disastrous job interview he is now at the mercy of his own impulses. His drinking obliterates the remianing inhibitions, if there still were any, and his downward path accelerates. Part of his feeling of being lost is that in his past even though he seemed to have it all—he was clearly skilled in his academic pursuits, he was popular, and he did well in the female department—but part of that is what led him astray in the first place and it would have only offered him fleeting joy. As he engages with that in the present, the small derived pleasures now dissipate almost immediately.
Ebert also wrote:
He meets a nice girl, Rebecca, at the party. She knows nothing of his past. She likes him. She invites him to come along with some friends, and on one of those bright Nordic mornings, they go skinny-dipping in a pool. All but Anders, who smiles and nods but doesn't jump in. He knows what will happen before long. He knows the script.
Ebert somewhat implies that there is a notably premeditated and fully decisive nature to Anders' final action. He did get heroin earlier on and it was slightly expository in how the low-key drug dealer displayed some surprise in Anders' desired quantity but that isn't clearly stamping his suicide. Having the heroin could be a just in case measure but he may have ended up using only some or none, and not the fatal dose.
Anders needed to come to the realization to leave but that would have taken more time. At that troublesome moment he couldn't let go of the city. The film had segments of the city in which Anders would narrate past memories, those mainly with friends and family. He couldn't come to terms that there was nothing there for him anymore and that his worries of starting over were valid but he didn't see that it would be much harder for him to do it there than elsewhere.
Those that brought up the largest feelings of stress, dismay, and guilt for him were his parents, sister, and most recent girlfriend. Tellingly, we see none of them in the film. Those closest to him that are available are Thomas and Mirjam. His sister ignores him for their meet-up for coffee citing her own misgivings, even though she's not the one whose life is imperilled. His parents are on a lavish vacation. His girlfriend will not answer his calls. He leaves her a parting voicemail right before his death.
Apart from the narrated interludes, the film is quite linear and much isn't too far outside of convention. The final sequences are shots of Oslo at locations relevant to where Anders was in his final day but shown in reverse chronological order. The expression of this, and in such a manner, isn't fully clear in intention but what we see is that as Anders is dead, the city is still alive and quite as it was before. Anders is dead and alone, and were it not for the fact that in that day the staff at the rehabilitation facility will now be greatly concerned and will begin looking for him, his corpse could easily stay there for days until his parents return from vacation.
Most of the people he meets throughout the day ignore where he is in life or somehow don't want to fully and properly confront it. He is still left to his own devices, as if they're to be relied upon. There is a clever line that is snuck in early on with the facility's staff member speaking to Anders, noting that in regards to the cabbie who will come pick him up to take him into the city, that the cab drivers are often fully unaware that they exist out there. To the world—in this case Oslo—Anders and the other residents don't exist. As Anders wanders around Oslo on his final day, he, as who he actually is, essentially doesn't exist as far as his surroundings are concerned. The closest someone comes to full breaking beyond that is Tove but she is restrained by the sister's desires and their sibling dynamic.
In sum, it is a story solely of Anders and Oslo. The former cannot escape the latter, but must do so to survive. He looks to it to find something for him to hold on to and to find a way forward but the only way forward is to be away from it. The further he goes in, he only finds more emptiness, and without thinking beyond its perimeter, he then perishes. As per the title, it was merely another day for the city.
So, where—as I will assert—the film will stand the test of time is in the combination of the deep underlying truth in Anders' quandry along with the flawless portrayal of the character by Anders Danielsen-Lie. Atop that, the subtle yet brilliant cinematic devices utilized with long contemplative takes and the camera's juxtaposing of Anders with Oslo.