Putting an unhappy life under the microscope, Ole Giæver’s Out Of Nature is an acute but glum excursion into first world problems.
Into The Wild
by Mark WilshinOut Of Nature
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
There’s something altogether world-weary about Norwegian director’s Ole Giæver’s Out Of Nature. Perhaps it’s those short winter days or that black Norwegian humour, but as Mot Naturen slowly dissects the unhappy life of father and husband Martin (played by Giæver himself), it’s a bleak mixture of arrogance, loneliness and antisocial bitterness that permeates the screen, as his interior monologue reveals his boredom at work, his contempt for his colleagues and his dissatisfaction with his wife and child. On the surface, Martin has it all – a job, home, wife and son – but his life is coloured (or rather discoloured) by a grey gloom, and his only escape from his pitiful existence is to head for the hills. A gentle odyssey of a family man finding his way back, Out Of Nature has some beautifully original moments – like his cycling stream of conscious – but like a prolonged and hateful moan, nature here is at its bleakest. And just a little self-obsessed.
Out Of Nature is now showing at the 65th Berlin Film Festival
