Search results for: Bent Hamer

It feels slightly odd to celebrate the Yuletide spirit in mid September, but Christmas Eve in Home for Christmas serves only as a calendar marker for a smidgen more of humanity and compassion between strangers, and the estranged. Logically lighter than most films bathing in traditional Scandi noir humor, the small miracle friendly film composed of intertwined vignettes (based on a short story collection from Levi Henriksen translated as Only Soft Presents Under The Tree) sees TIFF regular Bent Hamer (95's Eggs and 2003's Kitchen Stories) string together a tragi-film where despair doesn't completely drown out good intentions.

I was wondering why Peter Mullan's Neds wasn't included in Venice. I was wondering why the Midnight Madness section didn't name Koen Mortier's latest. I was wondering why Cannes regular Bent Hamer wasn't in Cannes. TIFF's CWC section has all three high profile items, plus Venice Film Festival's Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichard) and Three (Tom Tykwer). Reichard will participate in Kelly Reichardt in a Mavericks discussion about the behind the scenes of her process.

I first discovered Bent Hamer not with his Director's Fortnight 1995 film Eggs, but with a smallish offering called Kitchen Stories (03). I thought the tale about Norwegians studying the domestic habits of Swedes was the best thing since sliced bread.

Pick up any book written by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) and you get the idea he had a lot of lousy jobs as he came up through the ranks of obscurity to worldwide literary fame. Art imitates life, and work is a major part of his fictional world, along with drinking, racetrack betting, poverty, desperation, sex and violence. His characters live on the edge, walking a fine line between keeping it together for another day or falling into total destitution. Poignant and insightful, savage and often times bizarre, Bukowski’s writing has an infectious quality about it, and he is rightfully considered one of America’s most influential and significant artists.

You have to admire European film industry folks - they go to bat for their filmmakers.