Oslo Trilogy: Sex

 

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different settings and characters, yet sharing certain themes, where  “liberty,” “equality,” and “fraternity” have been replaced by “Sex,” “Love,” and “Dreams,” which is the order they were released in Norway, with the title suggesting one thing, but no sex is ever shown, instead it is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.

2022 Top Ten List #6 Benediction

Writer/director Terence Davies

Davies on the set with Kate Phillips and Jack Lowden

Siegfried Sassoon

Sassoon with close friend Robert Hanmer

shooting on the set

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BENEDICTION                    A-                                                                                               Great Britain  USA  (137 mi)  2021  ‘Scope  d: Terence Davies

Alone he staggered on until he found                                                                                         Dawn’s ghost that filtered down a shafted stair                                                                             To the dazed, muttering creatures underground                                                                               Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.                                                                             At last, with sweat and horror in his hair,                                                                                    He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,                                                                  Unloading hell behind him step by step.

—excerpt from The Rear-Guard, by Siegfried Sassoon, written on the Hindenburg Line, April 1917, siegfried sassoon - The War Poems - Project Gutenberg

This has a towering, epic feel about it, something of a gay anthem, coming in the latter stages of the director’s career when history, vintage photographs, poetry, cinema, and Catholicism, which is painfully prominent, all merge together, incorporating his own queer history, telling the story of English poet, writer, and soldier Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden), decorated for bravery on the Western Front, officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers and winner of the Military Cross, becoming one of the most influential and historically important poets of the First World War.  Angry at the futility of war, having lost his younger brother at Gallipoli, his compassionate anti-war poems differed from the jingoism and sentimentality of other war poets, more political and more edgy, instead writing about the horror and brutality of trench warfare and the tragic waste of human life, like ordering young men to charge against machine guns that literally mow them down, always remaining connected to those frontline soldiers while blisteringly satirizing the generals, politicians, and clergymen for their incompetence and blind support of the war.  Public reaction was fierce, some complaining the poet displayed little patriotism, while others found his shockingly realistic depiction of war to be too extreme, accentuating the graphic detail, but he eloquently captured the feeling of trench warfare, where the accumulated war deaths in WWI were simply staggering, First World War: fatalities per country 1914-1918 - Statista, with soldiers dying by the millions, shown in a lyrical stream-of-consciousness montage of black and white photographs that are simply striking, set to the starkly unusual choice of music of (Ghost) Riders In The Sky - Vaughn Monroe (a #1 record) - YouTube (3:01), with WWI metaphorically supplanting the Wild West, quoting Wilfred Owen’s opening line “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” from Anthem for Doomed Youth, Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen | Poetry Foundation, or underlined by an impassioned reading of Sassoon’s poetry that reflects the weariness of British soldiers in a war that never seems to end.  He wrote a letter to his commanding officer after throwing his Military Cross medal into the river, declining to return to duty because he believed the war was being deliberately prolonged by those who had the power to end it, A Soldier’s Declaration, Sassoon's Protest Statement, which was published in newspapers and read aloud in the House of Commons, causing an extreme degree of embarrassment for the British military and very nearly got him court-martialed, BENEDICTION (2022) movie clip: "I simply cannot remain silent..." YouTube (1:27), instead, after intervention from important figures, including British poet and historical novelist Robert Graves, his commanding officer in the Fusiliers, he was sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland for recuperation and treated for shell shock, a condition he did not have.  It was there he met his treating psychiatrist, Dr. W. H. R. Rivers (Ben Daniels), the first in Britain to use “talking therapy,” discovering they both share a “love that dare not speak its name,” an Oscar Wilde reference to homosexuality, one of the first gay men he became close to, while also meeting fellow poet Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), who was the editor of The Hydra, a literary journal produced by the patients.  Immediately striking up a friendship, they each shared a profound respect for each other’s enormous talent, each believing the other was the superior poet, providing a brief solace in their lives, developing a homoerotic friendship that was never consummated, seen dancing the tango together, cheek-to-cheek, but they kept in contact through correspondence, even as Owen was quickly sent back to the front lines, dying just a week before armistice was declared at the age of 25, with the war taking perhaps the only man he ever really loved.  Owen’s work inspired Benjamin Britten to write his War Requiem, also Derek Jarman’s 1989 film by the same name, while his loss, added to Sassoon’s younger brother, and the collective loss of the millions of war dead affected him greatly, haunted by the cries of “the muffled dead,” losing so much at such an early age, never really coming to terms with the psychological damage of unfathomable trauma, all but confirming his worst fears. 

Davies lyrically examined his own childhood in Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992), created a passionate ode to his hometown, Of Time and the City (2008), explored the literary passages of Edith Wharton in THE HOUSE OF MIRTH (2000), Terence Rattigan in The Deep Blue Sea (2012), Lewis Grassic Gibbon in 2016 Top Ten List #7 Sunset Song, and American poet Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion (2017), and while this fails to meet the poetic depth of his earlier films, the dramatization still feels like an elegiac transformation onto the screen, creating haunting moments that simply linger in the air, including beautifully constructed sequences shot by Nicola Daley, working with the director for the first time, that eloquently express Davies as a superb conceptual artist.  Bringing a theatrical quality to the production, with Sassoon returning home after the war, Christmas is laced with an anguished memory of all that has just transpired, leaving one exhausted and emotionally spent, Benediction Movie Clip - Reliving the Past (2022) | Movieclips Coming Soon YouTube (1:19), while also searching for the sublime in a portrait of cherry blossoms set to exquisitely delicate music, Butterworth: A Shropshire Lad - Loveliest of trees - YouTube (3:27).  Brilliantly written by Davies, in tune with the sensitivity of each character, the wit and elocution of the dialogue is among the director’s best, each word precisely chosen, initially established through the tender exchanges between doctor and patient, both proper English gentlemen, developing an immediate rapport through their erudite language, but growing more intellectually testy as he enters the upper echelons of British society after the war, developing an Oscar Wilde flair for the dramatic in a series of romantic affairs and encounters with rich socialites, reciting one of his own poems, Benediction: Blaze Of Lights (HD CLIP) Jack Lowden, Tom Blyth WWI Movie YouTube (1:41), while indulging in parties and extravaganzas in the Gatsby-like era of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s - Historic UK where gay and lesbian relationships were commonly accepted.  In this richly decadent atmosphere he meets Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), a matinee idol, composer of witty stage music, and openly gay silent screen star in Hitchock’s atmospheric murder mystery drenched in fog, The Lodger (1927), who sings his own deliciously witty novelty song, And Her Mother Came Too (Harold Lloyd) - YouTube (1:53), before scandalously ditching his boyfriend and taking the arm of Sassoon to commence yet another romantic fling.  This same song was sung by Jeremy Northam when playing Novello in Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001), aptly reflecting the times in which it was written, when risqué tongue-in-cheek comedy was all the rage.  The screen is a bouquet of gay narcissists flaunting their flamboyant effeminance, literally snarling at one another with their claws out, including actor and theater director Glen Byam Shaw (Tom Blyth), coupled with Novello before Sassoon came onto the scene, and Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch), an impetuous and beguiling prize with a flair for the rich and glamorous, something of a social climber habitually looking at himself in the mirror while continually exhibiting an insouciant flair.  All handsome and divinely dressed, at times this resembles a chic costume drama where the winner takes the prize, like when they meet Hester Gatty (Kate Phillips), the well-connected and wealthy daughter of a Chief Justice who dabbled in painting and writing poetry, quickly grabbing Sassoon when the occasion suits her, BENEDICTION - Frist Clip For Terence Davies’ Siegfried Sassoon Biopic Starring Jack Lowden #TIFF2021 YouTube (2:16).  Described by Sassoon’s mother as the “pretty boys,” they all interchange with one another in relationships at some point in time, trying one another out like some kind of social experiment, where the freedom they are looking for resembles the free love movement from the 60’s, while hovering over them is art critic Robbie Ross (Simon Russell Beale), an elder gay statesman who bravely defended Oscar Wilde (who was imprisoned for his sexuality) from scurrilous attacks and helped protect his literary legacy.  Left out of the film is the affair Sassoon had with Prince Philipp of Hesse, a German aristocrat who later joined the Nazi Party, serving as Hitler’s art collector.  The fleetingness of these Bohème relationships mirror the cattiness of the characters and the ferocity of the sharp barbs intended to stab their prey, exhibiting a stifling self-centerdness of people utterly caught up in themselves, where you wonder why anyone would stick around, Benediction: The Fight (HD CLIP) Jack Lowden, Tom Blyth WWI Movie YouTube (2:19), but it reflects the underlying anxiety of being gay during a time when it was outlawed, something that has also plagued the director throughout his life, scurrying to the hallowed realms of the Catholic Church in hopes of salvation, only to end up bitterly disappointed. 

Rather than telling Sassoon’s story in a biographical sense, Davies approaches his life subjectively, accentuating the accompanying feelings expressed through his poems, where his films are often memory plays, using associative editing and an evocative use of music, offering reflections of looking back at one’s life with a sense of regret.  The length of the film feels rightly deserved in this film, as poetry needs space to breathe, where the silences and pauses need to be felt.  By scouring Sassoon’s diaries, the actor Jack Lowden quickly realized he was playing a conglomeration of Sassoon mixed with the director’s own personal feelings, merging into a starkly authoritative depiction of growing up gay in the moral straightjacket of the British empire (homosexuality was outlawed until 1967, with a new law passed just weeks after Sassoon’s death), leading to a tortuously repressed existence.  This is the director’s most openly gay film, though he maintains the self-loathing factor associated with his own homosexuality ('Being gay has ruined my life' – The Irish Times), while the reverence Sassoon feels for the community of brothers lost in the war has a nearly homoerotic connotation, as they represent the hopes and dreams of a future generation that never see the light of day, expressing so much love and admiration for them, as they carried with them his own aspirations for a better world and a better life.  When they died, something within him died as well.  While there is frivolity in youth, with economic privilege granting them sexual freedoms, Sassoon’s life evolves into unusual sadness, hiding behind an angry veneer of an almost sneering honesty, though his mother (Geraldine James) reminds him “it’s more humane to be kind than honest.”  Filled with a gravity of emotions that suggests an endlessly combustible inner turmoil, Sassoon is driven back into the closet where he leads an overly repressed shadow life, searching for redemption through societal respectability and the protected sanctity of marriage, and ultimately religion, never really enunciating his disappointment, instead hoping for the sought-after salvation.  Thinking this may come in the form of Hester Gatty, at age 47 Sassoon marries her, twenty years younger than him, hoping to have a child together, then somewhat later he converts to Catholicism, where the great promise of a more stabilized life turns into an unmitigated disaster.  One of the most startling images is an age transformation in a held shot, as Jack Lowden morphs into a much older Peter Capaldi, thoroughly embittered and dejected at the abysmal state of his life, supremely angry at the world and disgusted with himself, living in a sterile relationship with an unhappily discouraged partner, where the alluring Kate Phillips transforms into a frumpy Gemma Jones, losing all sense of her former sensuality, looking positively dour, neither one having anything to say to each other, with Gatty eventually departing for Scotland, driven to unending despair by a relentless onslaught of verbal abuse from an uncaring husband.  Yet for abject cruelty, it would be hard to top a scene with the now older Stephen Tennant (Anton Lesser), as it appears there are simply no feelings left, Benediction (2022) Clip | Jack Lowden, Peter Capaldi YouTube (1:30).  Their grown-up son George (Richard Goulding) looks nothing like either one of them, blending into the landscape with a thoroughly average appearance, where nothing about him stands out, apparently playing referee between his two parents, acting as a go-between until they separate, trying to get his father to utter anything, as he goes into catatonic states of aloof despondency, sitting for hours without saying a word.  When he finally gets his father to go to the theater, thinking this would have a positive effect on his outlook, they go to the overly cheery Anthony Newley British comedy Stop the World – I Want to Get Off, a show that ends with the song What Kind of Fool Am I?, yet what Davies chooses to show is the cheesy sentiment of Typically English (Live) - YouTube (3:42), which Sassoon must have found dreadful.  The film opens with Sassoon’s A Soldier’s Declaration and closes with Wilfred Owen’s poem Disabled, Disabled by Wilfred Owen | Poetry Foundation, which is read while a young Sassoon sits on a bench and witnesses a legless war veteran in a wheelchair being taken outside a medical facility and simply forgotten, leaving him drowning in an abject state of horror, where the title takes on an elegiac significance, merging into a final wordless sequence that is as bleak as it is enthralling, endlessly holding onto a face, where you may recall a similar heart-wrenching finale, Visions of Gideon- Sufjan Stevens (Call Me By Your Name Soundtrack) High Quality YouTube (4:42), though this shakes the very core of one’s being, set to a Vaughan Williams theme, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis - YouTube (16:35), where Sassoon has simply lost all faith in the world, leaving him heartbroken and dismally sad, seemingly frozen in time, transformed into an agonizing state of morose despair.