The Oslo Trilogy: Three Films By Joachim Trier [Blu-ray]

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Only superficially a reader, Julie is also only superficially a writer, too: all she has to her name is a binned attempt at fiction described by a boyfriend as autobiography and one thinkpiece of the ilk dismissed by Anders in Oslo, 31 August. (Interviewing with a magazine, Anders wryly advises it avoid publishing articles he thinks of as ‘Samantha in Sex in the City seen through Schopenhauer’.) Nonetheless, according to the sporadic voice-over in The Worst Person, Julie’s ‘Oral Sex in the Time of #MeToo’ “sparks lively debate on Facebook”, just as Erik’s Prosopopoeia, according to the third-person voice-over in Reprise “sparks lively debate”. While this is certainly intended as a comment on the changing shape of the public sphere – from serious literature to sex and politics, from newspapers and magazines to Facebook – more interesting, surely, is the discrepancy between the kind of voice Trier and Vogt allow Erik and what kind of voice they allow Julie. In both Reprise and The Worst Person, the voice-over eventually dissolves. Its dissolution in Reprise makes space for Erik to narrate the closing montage of the film: in the future conditional tense, Erik imagines Phillip, his now ailing friend , to be sitting and talking outside a café, not in a hospital but in the world. Dissolution of the voice-over in The Worst Person, however, makes space not for Julie to write, narrate or dream, but for Aksel to rant and lament. The writer of serious literature is permitted the lofty, literary space of the voice-over; the feminist of one thinkpiece is not.

Starring Barry Keoghan as a Talented Mr Ripley type initially dazzled by his smooth college chums at Oxford, Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman could be seen as a sort of cautionary tale for toffs who think it might be amusing to invite a member of the working class into their rarefied milieu.

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Twentysomething documentary-maker Ella Glendining is looking to connect with other people like herself – in some ways a universally relatable quest. But Glendining has to search harder than most: born with no hip joints and short femurs, her condition is so rare that it doesn’t have a name. SNL alumnus and Portlandia co-creator Armisen is indie comedy royalty and also has a sideline in music (he’s currently bandleader on Late Night with Seth Meyers). Now he merges his twin loves in Comedy for Musicians But Everyone Is Welcome, which wrangles muso observations into crowd-pleasing gags. Rachel Aroesti Renate Reinsve is captivating as a free spirit unable to settle down in The Worst Person in the World

Kasper Tuxen’s camera utterly adores Reinsve, with alluring close-ups of her extraordinary eyes, which reveal both her need to be with someone and her craving for freedom. Shortly after meeting Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), an older comic book artist, Julie crashes a wedding party and is instantly drawn to Eivind (Herbert Nordrum); although both have significant others, they dive straight into a gorgeously filmed seduction that involves no touching, wondering whether that counts as cheating. It’s a marvelous scene that questions the very nature of relationships and fidelity and sets the stage for everything that comes next. The opening weekend of this year’s fest features UK premieres of two recent major works by Rebecca Saunders. The Oslo Sinfonietta introduces Skull, influenced by Haruki Murakami (18 Nov); while Ensemble Nikel and Noa Frenkel bring Us Dead Talk Love, setting texts by Ed Atkins (19 Nov). Andrew Clements Before there was Hollywood icon Cary Grant, there was Bristol boy Archibald Leach, who had a deeply traumatic childhood. Made in collaboration with Grant’s daughter and ex-wife, this Jason Isaacs-starring biopic traces the actor’s radical transformation from one man to another. RAFor the last four chapters of the film, the voice of Aksel comes to the fore. Julie is running on a treadmill when she coincidentally sees Aksel (now her ex-boyfriend) on the gym’s television, protecting art against “post-feminist” political correctness on a chat show with two women: two women written, conveniently, to do little to no justice to the complexities of debate around “transgressive” art in the wake of the #MeToo movement. In any case, as the reclusive Sten Egil Dahl tells us in Reprise, a chat show is no place to discuss art and literature. If Aksel loses the battle of the show, a man cancelled for being on the wrong side of contemporary discourse, then he wins the war for art and literature. He leaves the realm of the talk show, Julie’s realm of thinkpieces, as someone who is better than it, too clever for it: misunderstood. Later, in hospital for cancer treatment, Aksel mourns the end of books, films and records as things to hold and to live with. And as Aksel mourns, so too does the film mourn Aksel as the dying voice of art. By ending these last chapters of The Worst Person with Aksel, Trier and Vogt frame the Oslo trilogy firmly as their equivalent to Linklater’s Boyhood or Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films, with Phillip-Anders-Aksel as the man who gradually gives up on art and tragically bows out from the world. All in all, the trilogy is a story of men: the last-minute shift in focus to Julie is fleeting and false. The Oslo Trilogy is an outstanding collection of three films from filmmaker Joachim Trier: Reprise, Oslo, August Karl Ove Knausgaard, So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch [2017], trans. Ingvild Burkey (London: Penguin, 2019). st, and The Worst Person in the World. The collection is a must-own for fans of these films. Outstanding

in the digital streaming era. (For some, like myself, physical media will always be the preferred option for film viewings). The Redbreast: A report of a rare and unusual gun being fired sparks Detective Harry Hole's interest. Then a former soldier is found with his throat cut. Next, Harry's former partner is murdered. Why had she been trying to reach Harry on the night she was killed?Norwegian director Joachim Trier concludes his Oslo Trilogy with the riveting The Worst Person in the World, which is having a preview screening at Lincoln Center on January 28 before opening there on February 4. Shortlisted for Best International Feature Film, it is part of a weeklong series that includes the first two parts of the trilogy, 2006’s Reprise and 2011’s Oslo, August 31st, along with works selected by Trier and cowriter Eskil Vogt that influenced them. The return of Wayne McGregor’s all-star interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Thomas Adès’s rich score brings new colours to McGregor’s movement, and Tacita Dean’s transfixing films make the last act a visual feast. Lyndsey Winship The Texas trio, led by Greg Gonzalez, arrive in the UK ahead of their third album. Recent singles suggest they’re not deviating from their ethereal goth-tinged dream pop, so expect a lot of dry ice and a reliance on mood over movement. MC A special bundle of three of Jo Nesbo's award-winning crime titles starring the inimitable Detective Harry Hole.