QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN
Popular Norwegian Prime Minister Alma Solvik (Laila Goody) seeks reelection, and she is almost certain to win by a landslide. She celebrates the seeming prospect of an imminent win by dancing and undressing her nerdy, bespectacled husband Sondre Bortnes (Anders Baasmo) to the sound of Strangeways’ groovy Oh Baby Blue. The future looks bright. Until the opposition find out that Alma may have been involved in the illegal purchase of company shares. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Or rather a fatberg (a giant mass of grease clogging up a city’s sewers). The sheer amount of dirt waiting to be uncovered is very large indeed. Particularly for a Scandinavian country, a place more commonly associated with diligence and transparency.
Young and gorgeous spin doctor Karianne (Pia Tjelta) steps in in order to find a solution. The unorthodox “clinician” operates with surgical precision. She quickly devises a simple solution: just blame Sondre! Throw him under the bus. And not just any bus. The articulated bus even. He’s guaranteed to survive the ordeal, while also vouching for the integrity of his spouse’s reelection bid. Other tactics include instructing Alma’s make-up artist to add a touch of glitter to the side of her eye before she goes on a live television interview. The objective is to feign a teary eye, thus highlighting Alma’s “genuine” disappointment in her husband. That’s the film’s funniest and most effective scene.
Pia Tjelta’s Karianne is the film’s most magnetic character. Elegant, sharp-tongued, sharp-eyed and sharp-elbowed, she’s always prepared to jostle her way through a crowd, and to have the final word. The actress delivered another very strong performance in Nina Knag’s Don’t Call Me Mama, which premiered earlier this year in Karlovy Vary. The other thespians are auspicious, too. The problem with No Comment isn’t the acting, but instead a script that isn’t remarkably funny,
This 89-minute film often lapses into lame comedy territory. The jokes are trite (the articulated bus analogy is repeated several times, as is something to the effect of “divine male enlargement”). The story heavily relies on predictable developments and awkward dance numbers for humorous purposes. The soundtrack – blending, rap and pop music – is extremely loud and invasive, desperately attempt to lift nearly each and every scene of the movie out of mediocrity. The outcome is often irritating.
While dealing with politics, No Comment isn’t a particularly political film, at least not to the foreign eye. The criticism does no seem directed at any specific party or ideology. The colour blue seems like a random choice (perhaps because of the movie’s opening tune?), and not directly aimed at the Conservative Party of Norway (which uses blue as its official colour). In a way, it is a nihilistic film. It proposes that politics are intrinsically corrupt, and nobody is to be trusted. That’s neither an inspiring nor a hopeful message. The topic of toxic masculinity is also present. A group of corporate males arrogantly dismiss Karianne, presumably because of her gender. A drunk Sondre and two friends send the same woman a very lewd message. Director Petter Næss and writer Ståle Stein Berg have nothing remarkably meaningful to say.
No Comment just premiered in the Official Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
