Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Vincent Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius, Karin Myrenberg, Brady Corbet, Johannes Moustos, Jorge Lattof, Adrian Heinisch, Michael Breitenberger, Karl Pincon, Julie Roumogoux, Peter Gaunt.

Nature is a force so incomprehensible that its overwhelming tsunami like effect it has on the soul is to be seen as complex and extraordinary. Like an avalanche travelling at a hundred miles an hour and aiming straight at you, the only thing to do is either run from it, or stare it down, come Hell or high water, your choice is how it will be seen to define you.

Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure explores what happens when nature prevails in the hearts of a person, when a moment’s panic is offset by calm measured response. When a young family finally find time to reconnect over a skiing holiday, they are not to know the impact of a decision made in haste will have on their lives.

Kristofer Hivju’s stature precedes him and in a film that has two very outstanding leads, for the supporting actor to tower above his cinematic cohorts takes some doing and in his role as the gentle, but easily riled when people say something that is out of place, Mats is a vision of how sometimes all is not what it seems in the world of cinema. The character of Mats is one that comes out of the whole dreadful affair with no blame or thought of censure attached to him, and shows to extent that even those that listen and try to make peace with the world are liable to get kicked by words spoken in contemplation.

Nobody can ever say how they will react to any given situation, the fight or flight mode installed into our primordial beast like actions is so deeply engrained, that at one moment you can be seen as the hero taking a bullet for a stranger, protecting a loved one from attack, the next seen as cowardly because some primitive instinct has kicked in saying you need to survive this. All danger is relative and no two person’s actions will be the same and yet we are expected to be held to the point of constant heroism, that to be seen to err is a sign of weakness.

In an ending that reflected the changing tides in a relationship which had become distorted by expectation, the turning point is to be seen as pivotal in understanding what may be considered desperation in one person is somehow to accuse in another.

Force Majeure is a great exploration of what it means to be a hero, of how brave people can fall through one momentary action in which the need for self preservation is paramount and yet they can then be perceived as the villain. Force Majeure is a film that sits perfectly in the realm of the foreign language experience.  

Ian D. Hall