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| Director Dag Johan Haugerud |
OSLO TRILOGY: SEX B Norway (118 mi) 2024 ‘Scope d: Dag Johan Haugerud
If you, as a human being, have the capacity to recognize goodness and beauty, and be excited by it. If you have the capacity to recognize injustice and act on it. If you have the capacity to recognize evil and distance yourself from it. —Chimney Sweep CEO (Thorbjørn Harr) recalling the words of David Bowie in a dream sequence
Author and filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud studied to become a librarian at Oslo University College, while obtaining a degree in film studies at Stockholm University, theater studies at the University of Oslo, and writer’s studies at Telemark University College, making an ambitious Oslo Trilogy with three stand-alone films connected by complementary themes and perspectives, including the location of Oslo and the heartfelt and mature storytelling technique that ruminates on modern day relationships, revolving around themes of desire, identity, and a longing for freedom. There is an existing Oslo Trilogy in Joachim Trier’s Reprise (2006), 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #10 Oslo, August 31, and 2021 #3 Film of the Year The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske), a melancholy, intricately observed portrait of a city in flux, documenting the changing face of a modernizing Oslo, with people questioning their role in life and what place self-expression might play in it. Allegedly inspired by Krzysztof Kieslowski’s THREE COLORS TRILOGY, with its intersecting plot scenarios, offering different settings and characters, yet sharing certain themes, where “liberty,” “equality,” and “fraternity” have been replaced by “Sex,” “Love,” and “Dreams,” which is the order they were released in Norway, with the title suggesting one thing, but no sex is ever shown, instead it is discussed extensively by two different heterosexual men in their marriages, one an atheist and the other a Christian, examining contemporary masculinity through waves of repercussions that play out in fragile and unexpected ways, as each of the three segments prominently features unnamed heterosexual characters being confronted by a sudden sense of queer desire, challenging our view of masculinity, and hopefully broadening our perspectives. For instance, sexuality is more amorphous than how it tends to be represented, where a gay act is not necessarily equated with being gay, so they have to get through an undercurrent of exploratory emotional travails with very few moments of solitary reflection. Outside of the city of Oslo itself, which has come to be viewed as a special place, a city of hope, like a welcoming sanctuary city known for its broad-minded openness, as Nordic countries in general are very secular, where they don't feel the suffocating pressure of religious morality, there are no recurring characters in the Oslo Trilogy with the exception of Bjørn (Lars Jacob Holm), a gay psychiatrist/psychologist who appears in all three films, a central character in LOVE, but otherwise only appears in brief cameo appearances. A morality tale more reminiscent of Éric Rohmer’s SIX MORAL TALES (1963 – 1972), with Haugerud writing his thesis on the French filmmaker at university, this has a literary feel, intelligent and complex, exuding in the possibilities of new relationship models, where homoerotic longing is evident, yet language repeatedly gains the upper hand over cinematic aesthetics, expressed through nuanced character studies crisscrossed with long dialogue sequences, making this is a conversation-heavy film exploring the uncharted territories of male sexuality. Shooting over the course of a year rather than just a few weeks, with echoes of Hong Sang-soo’s dialogue-heavy dramas, this may also recall Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy, Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013), where the first two are among the best romantic love stories of the modern era, yet this lacks Linklater’s romantic spontaneity in the moment, instead exploring the boundaries we establish in our lives around sex and gender, and whether they are expansive enough to encompass all of who we are and have the potential to be.
Opening with a panoramic view of the city, shot in ‘Scope by Cecilie Semec, giving the interior scenes an almost sterile look, with a jazz fusion, conventionally mainstream, flugelhorn-led score by Peder Capjon Kjellsby that sounds like Chuck Mangione from the 70’s, we see two chimney sweeps on rooftops cleaning out chimney stacks before retreating to an office with expansive city views of Oslo’s rooftops outside as CEO (Thorbjørn Harr) describes a recently recurring dream with David Bowie looking at him as if he were a woman, suddenly the object of a male gaze, which apparently hits a raw nerve, as this is something he’s never felt before, and he’s not sure what to make of it. “It’s strange how dreams change when you start talking about them.” His work partner (Jan Gunnar Røise) responds with a recent real-life incident with one of his male customers who asked to have sex with him. Initially rebuffed, as he’s not gay, he left the premises, but stopped himself on the street and reconsidered, equally enamored by the way this man lustfully “looked” at him, like he’s being objectified, claiming “no one had ever looked at me like this,” so he stepped back inside and surrendered to a completely different sexual experience, one that opened his eyes and left him thrilled in a uniquely different way. Both men are close and openly transparent with each other, speaking in an unusually relaxed manner, with private thoughts revealed in confidence, finding themselves shaken in ways they don’t truly understand, stirring confusion, while leading us to question how much our personalities are shaped by how others see us. Structured very much like a play, this sets the stage for what follows, with the film getting into layered detail about the ramifications, delving into an interior landscape accentuating the power of emotions that resembles what we’ve seen before from Ingmar Bergman, particularly Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973), with both men seeking transparency and understanding with their wives. The filmmaker, who is gay, acknowledges that everything he does is through a queer perspective, claiming one of his goals in the trilogy had been to describe what might happen if people of all sexualities adopted a gay perspective on intimacy, a radically subversive concept, one must say, offering a counterpoint to the rise of a social discourse centered on conflict and division. While the partner was ecstatic about his secret interlude, when he shared what happened with his wife (Siri Forberg), she is less than enthused, bringing her close to tears, viewing it as a marital betrayal, wondering just how he might feel if she had engaged in a similar sexual encounter. “Marriage is not there to curb our sexuality,” he responds, making a case for seemingly aberrant desires and impulses as an everyday fact of life, something that initially left him sexually elated, literally beaming with enthusiasm, yet he does not perceive it either as an expression of homosexual desire or an act of infidelity, quickly becoming a source of shame, however, as he wrongly thought he could compartmentalize the impact and matter only to him, but his wife immediately calls him on it, viewing it as cheating, a breach of trust, not some small matter, exposing how questions about sex and sexuality carry so much anxiety and moral weight. We’ve seen this before in the queer cinema of Ira Sach’s 2023 Top Ten List #8 Passages, where Tomasz (Franz Rogowski) comes home to his gay husband (Ben Whishaw) one day and declares he just had sex with a woman for the first time and enjoyed it, expecting his husband to share in the joy, but his partner is more than a little perturbed.
Regularly occurring pictures of Oslo appear as construction sites and giant building cranes can be seen, revealing an orderly city with minimalist architecture that is never finished, mirroring our relationships which are never complete, continually evolving over time. Chimney sweepers are a predominately male-dominated profession, offering the filmmaker an opportunity to shoot rooftop vistas that encompass city and sky landscapes, where the largesse of the expansive view is countered by small, intimate moments in enclosed spaces between marital partners, who tend to squabble about their everyday lives, caught up in conventional lives, yet espousing unusually liberal-minded thoughts about an expanding role of freedom in their relationship, which seems to be more of a pipe dream than an existing reality, as they are mostly guided by conventional societal practices. These marital conversations are the heart of the film, as the seemingly defensive work partner insists that sex isn’t love, and that he’s completely committed to his marriage, contending “Having one beer doesn’t make you an alcoholic.” This key scene goes on for some length, where she is initially seen only from the back, a tribute to Jean-Luc Godard’s My Life to Live (Vivre Sa Vie: Film en douze tableaux) (1962) when actress Anna Karina is similarly seen only from the back in her first scene. The CEO and his wife (Birgitte Larsen) are guided by principles of the Christian church they attend, where he sings in the choir, but seems to be experiencing muscle spasms in the back of his tongue, so his music instructor Nasrin Khusrawi offers him ways to help relax the muscle. While we don’t learn any of their names, creating an anonymous yet universal aspect to what we are seeing, this never becomes a wish fulfillment of gay fantasies, and though there’s nothing earthshaking about any of this, with no startling revelations, it’s discussed in a relaxed and candid atmosphere, with differing viewpoints diverging from what was expected. The men are dumbfounded by their wives’ reactions, causing them to rethink what they’re feeling, offering surprisingly frank discussions, which go even deeper when total strangers enter the picture, like a visit to a shockingly outspoken doctor (Anne Marie Ottersen), where she apparently has an infinite amount of time, revealing extremely personal anecdotes that become a black and white flashback sequence of a story-within-a-story, where the initial idea keeps expanding into new realms, yet viewed within the confines of a typical middle class family defined by comfort and stability. Challenging us to reconsider our understanding of sexuality, gender, and identity, this is perhaps a European expression about the way things could and should be, but isn’t, as society is instead overwhelmed by a condemnational aspect to anything straying from the norm, where in the age of the internet expansion, social media crushes mental health outlooks with regularity, creating heightened anxiety, depression, loneliness, increased levels of psychological distress, and lower life satisfaction. The film pretends to give an open view of modern relationships, but feels extremely conservative with little innovation due to the reluctance of many characters, yet it offers no moral judgments, no easy resolutions, remaining open to interpretation. Subtle and unconventional, this feels more like a free form essay on expanding the role of what constitutes gender, suggesting it may be pigeonholed into a corner where it is literally unable to breathe. Because the characters continue to ask curious questions without judging, more and more is told about the characters themselves, displaying unusual degrees of tolerance and emotional intelligence.
