Hawaii, Oslo

Colour, 35 mm
Norway, 2004, 125 min
Section: Norwegian Cinema
Oficiální stránky: www.hawaiioslo.no

Synopsis

The leitmotif of the film is the changing patterns of a kaleidoscope which both separate and join five stories, set during a single summer’s day in Oslo. These, too, unexpectedly change and interweave; in one episode, certain relationships and groupings are formed, only to immediately disintegrate and be transformed in the next. In its ingenious jigsaw-like character, the film is reminiscent of 21 Grams by director Alejandro Iñárritu. Here, too, are people who had never met before, who, though intersecting several times, would just pass in the street anonymously. We also encounter woeful misfortunes, characters cave in under their weight, they make fatal mistakes, they don’t understand others or even themselves, they betray each other and hurt themselves. Yet, at the same time, each of them tastes the bitterness of loneliness and desires to be loved. Vidar is some kind of new-age guardian angel, a nurse from a psychiatric hospital; in the end, it looks as if he has watched over everyone else, forgetting himself....

About the director

Erik Poppe (b. 1960, Oslo) grew up in Norway and Portugal. In Oslo he studied photography and, during the 1980s, worked as a photographer for Reuters and Norwegian newspapers. In 1987-91 he studied film photography at the Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm. He then made a series of successful shorts, over 100 commercials and around 20 music videos. At home he won a prize for the TV series “Fire Brigade” (“Brigaden” , 2001-2002). His debut feature was the film Bunch of Five (Schpaaa, 1998) about a gang of juvenile delinquents. The film Hawaii, Oslo (2004) is his second feature film.