Norwegian Punk

I really can hardly watch Hollywood movies anymore. They're like chewing gum -- a nice burst of flavor, then nothing but wasted motion. You might remember the one-liners and special effects, but I doubt if "Batman" or "Indiana Jones" stretch your mind. Which is why I far prefer foreign flicks, where directors often try to strip a character naked and expose him to the world. 

That's what 34-year-old Joachim Trier does in "Reprise," a 2006 Norwegian film that I watched via Netflix's on-demand option (finally available for Macs). It tells the story of two young writers, Erik and Phillip, whose lives dramatically diverge as each gets published. Erik accepts his success with relative ease, while Phillip has a mental breakdown (the best portrayal of madness I've seen since the absolutely harrowing "Requiem for a Dream"). Backed on occasion by a punk soundtrack (who knew Scandinavians did anything but "Barbie Girl"?), the movie bumps with energy. I have no clue, but critics compared "Reprise" to France's New Wave films of the 1950s. It definitely smells European, from the brooding backdrops in Oslo to the skinny actors who portray the protagonists.

In essence, "Reprise" is about young people staring into what seems -- at 20 or 25 -- a never-ending life and a never-ending world. The characters talk in Norwegian (don't let the subtitles spook you), but they speak universally -- about the desire for respect, for fame, for success, for love, for security, for friendship and, as New York Times critic Dennis Lim put it, the "near-universal longing of young people" to be somewhere else.