39/28
Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of assaulting his best friend in elementary school. Norway’s official entry for Best International Feature Film; 97. Nominated for Oscar 2025. Norwegian films usually have low international standards, but here we have a film that manages to reach even an extremely low Norwegian standard. This is a truly rare achievement. For the most part, the film looks as if it was shot by first-year film school students. These students set out to create an experimental film unlike anything seen before, and they succeeded. However, they forgot something. Among other things, they forgot that even in bad films there are usually some tricks in the script that allow you to keep the viewer until the end, using some exciting moments or other cinematic techniques. There is neither one nor the other in this film. It’s just very bad. In addition, this is probably the cheapest film ever made. Costs are limited to actors, cameramen, lighting and sound engineers, and no one has technical problems in any wall. If you are strong enough to hold a camera and a microphone, you can make this film. The action of the film takes place only in the corridors and rooms of the school. They didn’t even bother with the sets. This is a school, a district school, and they probably borrowed it for free. The actors play not so badly. But it’s difficult for actors to play badly – it takes a very bad director to make actors look bad. So, strictly speaking, they are not actors.” it’s my fault, the movie is terrible. However, since they agreed to take on the roles, their appearance in “Arman” will become part of their film credits. It’s impossible to give this film a 0, but if he did, he would deserve a 0 simply because he doesn’t deserve a 1. By the way, this is Norway’s contribution to the Oscars this year. The Norwegian Oscar committee decided that this is the best film shot in Norway this year. How they came to such a conclusion is a mystery, given that there were many bad Norwegian films this year, but “Arman” is the worst. There are many bad Norwegian films that are much better than this one. For those who don’t know, there are no international players in Norway. For comparison, in Sweden and Denmark there are even several dozen of them. This film, with a trip to the USA and a nomination for the Oscar for the best film in a foreign language, demonstrates to the entire film industry that Norway is, in many practical ways, a country without a functioning cinematic environment.