Screening times:
Thursday, April 17, 6:30 PM
Sunday, April 27, 5:30 PM
Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel | Norway, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden | 2024 | 118m
Norwegian with English subtitles
with Renate Reinsve, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Endre Hellestveit, Thea Lambrechts Vaulen, Øystein Røger, Vera Veljovic
One of the last days before the school holidays something happens between two classmates, six-year-olds Armand and Jon. The kids' parents are called in for a meeting, but the school's management isn't sure what actually happened. Was it just a children’s game or something much more serious, more violent?
Armand's mother, Elizabeth (Renate Reinsve), is a single mother and a celebrated public figure, accustomed to attention and unwilling to compromise. She and the parents of the other boy have a history that complicates matters. The incident triggers an increasingly awkward, increasingly heated battle of wills between parents, teachers, and administrators in real time — where madness, desire, and obsession arise.
Filmmaker Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel is the grandson of two legends of Scandinavian cinema, Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, looking to make his own mark with this ambitious, unpredictable film. The single-location elementary school environment suggests a kinship with another Carbon Arc-screened film from the past year, The Teachers' Lounge, but in most other ways Armand is very much its own beast, utilizing surreal, and allegorical storytelling techniques to reveal characters' inner lives.
"Renate Reinsve reconfirms that she’s one of international cinema’s most electric presences, and her formidable performance is the axis around which this taut drama revolves." - Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
"In a film playing with thriller and melodrama conventions before tipping over into expressive surrealism, hers is a fiercely visceral presence; Reinsve performs as if dancing on the edge of a knife." - Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com
"The film starts by promising a bourgeois social drama about secrets and lies, suspicions and rivalries, and the troubled waters of juvenile and adult sexuality. What it ultimately becomes is much harder to define, but the result is resonant and haunting." - Jonathan Romney, Screen International
Winner: Camera d’Or (for Best First Film) - Cannes Film Festival, 2024
Tickets $8.75 ($8 cash at the door if available)
