Oslo, August 31^st

Whether it’s Ing­mar Bergman’s cold med­i­ta­tions on death, Lars von Trier’s sparse emo­tion­al tragedies, the melan­choly child vam­pires or the tat­tooed rape vic­tims, one thing’s for sure: it’s grim up Norse.

Final­ly fol­low­ing up his acclaimed 2006 debut Reprise, direc­tor Joachim Tri­er returns with a beau­ti­ful and uplift­ing film about drug addic­tion, depres­sion and exis­ten­tial angst. The Hol­ly­wood remake might be a long time com­ing, but this is the feel-good movie of the year – Scan­di­na­vian style.

Dis­af­fect­ed thir­ty-some­thing Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) only has a few weeks left of rehab. Tri­er fol­lows him over the course of a sin­gle day out in the real world to attend a job inter­view – con­fronting the peo­ple that watched him rip his life apart and dwelling on what the future may or may not hold.

Regrets, missed oppor­tu­ni­ties and wast­ed chances are parad­ed in front of Anders as he drifts through the city he used to know, and Trier’s cam­era focus­es as much on the peo­ple and places of Oslo as it does on Ander’s gen­tly explod­ing tragedy.

Adapt­ed from Pierre Drieu La Rochelle’s 1931 French nov­el ​‘Le Feu Fol­let’ (orig­i­nal­ly filmed in 1963 by Louis Malle as The Fire With­in), the film wears it’s lit­er­ary and cin­e­mat­ic influ­ences on its sleeve. Com­bin­ing Antonioni’s archi­tec­tur­al eye, Bresson’s clean ascetic tone and Malick’s bold ambi­tion, Tri­er still man­ages to give the film a remark­ably orig­i­nal voice.

Fol­low­ing ran­dom pedes­tri­ans in the street and eaves­drop­ping on con­ver­sa­tions absent­ly over­heard in crowd­ed cafés, the cam­era drifts in and out of Anders’ sto­ry as the city begins to dis­tract him. Glances stolen across a bar, the sound of music com­ing from the next room and the feel of an emp­ty city in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing – Oslo, August 31^st is a por­trait of life’s seem­ing­ly insignif­i­cant, yet light­ly poet­ic, moments.

Reck­less­ly shift­ing the tone and mood, Tri­er isn’t afraid to slam on the brakes either. An awk­ward con­ver­sa­tion between old friends and an excru­ci­at­ing job inter­view play like scenic inter­ludes along the oth­er­wise rolling momen­tum of Anders’ jour­ney – nei­ther scene any the less com­pelling for the unex­pect­ed change of pace.

Per­for­mances are strong across the board from an inex­pe­ri­enced cast, with Anders Danielsen Lie (in his last per­for­mance before switch­ing careers to med­i­cine) utter­ly con­vinc­ing as the gaunt, dis­tant youth reflect­ing the anx­i­eties of his generation.

Filmed in the gold­en hues of late sum­mer (as the title sug­gests), Oslo is an ode to the city itself. Paint­ing the del­i­cate lines of Anders’ descent onto the labyrinthine urban can­vas of the town he grew up in, Trier’s film is filled with a deep sense of nos­tal­gia that bathes the often bleak tale with unex­pect­ed warmth.

A film of fine detail on a grand scale, you won’t come out hum­ming a hap­py tune, but you’ll cer­tain­ly ​‘feel good’.