The journey or the destination?

The Worst Person in World (Verdens verste menneske, Norweigian; 2021)

Director: Joachim Trier

Maybe it is the pressure to experience all the sensations in one lifetime. Perhaps one lifespan is not long enough to complete Man's laundry list of wants and needs. There is a desire to do the right thing at the first attempt and not lose out to fellow world inhabitants. Are we so hedonistic, only caring for ourselves and not batting an eyelid for others? We have become so self-centred that nobody else matters. It is just me, myself and I.

We look at life as a reward. We exist to experience, only to die and disappear into oblivion. There are neither before nor forever after stories after this birth. We get one chance, after which it is GAME OVER. 

Like headless chickens, we seem to be running around, collecting experiences. 

We cannot wait. We see the line on the other side is moving faster. We jump queue only to find that the last line moves much quicker. We get frustrated. Getting back to the previous line is not possible. The bird has flown. We grow increasingly disheartened as your present queue crawls slowly. So slowly that by the time our turn arrives, the window is shut right on our faces as tickets have sold out. We leave, no tickets, so much time wasted but nothing to do but twiddle thumbs.

It would probably be wiser to lead a life more straightforwardly with preset guidelines of dos and don'ts. To follow the weather-beaten road would likely ensure a designated destination. The path seldom trailed may provide an exciting journey with spills, thrills and near-miss escapades, but is the journey more important than the destination or otherwise? Do we really have a preset zenith to conquer in this lifetime or are we just passing through, doing what we can, whilst reaping the maximum out of it?

This 2021 film is Joachim Trier's 'Oslo Trilogy' final instalment. It narrates the story of a fickle-minded young lady who sails through life, forever trying to find a footing in life. Julie is an exemplary student who made it to medical school. Soon she realised that it was not her calling and switched to psychology. Then psychology is also not to her liking, and Julie takes up photography. Life drifts on whilst she goes into relationship after relationship with much despair. 

It is a tale about personal development, heartaches and perhaps an analysis of what the present generation expects from a union. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ain’t no mountain high enough?

Louder than Bombs (2015)
Director: Joachim Trier

It seems that everyone is moving around their own burden of baggage. Just because they do not carry their heart on their sleeves and they appear composed, do not for once think that they had it all sorted out. In the same vein, like how Jesus is said to have said, "He who had not sinned shall cast the first stone!" no one is immune from failure or wrongdoing. Unfortunately, life is not two-dimensional but multilayered with sparks of goodness, evil, hopelessness, and injustices. It is within our duty to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

This story is a story of a widowed father with two sons. The mother, a high-flying photojournalist, had died three years previously. An exhibition is planned to fete her work, and a newspaper is planning an intimate exposé of her life and times. The article will not be pretty as many unanswered questions are surrounding her nasty car accident. The question of suicide is thrown in. 

The elder of the two sons is an academic whose wife had just delivered a baby. A chance meeting with his ex-girlfriend took him astray, reminiscing the alternative life he would have had if he had not married his current wife. He goes back to his father's house for soul searching. 

The young son, a 15-year-old, is apparently embroiled in his own growing pains without his mother, his go-to whenever she used to return from her long overseas trip. The imminent newspaper run down of his mother's life and times may suggest his mother's accident was a suicide. His father does not want his son to learn about his mother's double life in this manner. Hence, he tries desperately to pre-warn him. Their relationship is hardly cordial. 

The relationship takes a turn for the worse when he discovers that his class teacher is his father's new lover. 

The rest of the story is about how the three characters reconcile their differences and let sanity prevail. 

Sometimes we feel that our problems are so enormous, cataclysmic, even louder than bombs. The truth is that what we perceive as huge can sometimes be a fraction of what others may endure. No problem is insolvable. Always look at the sunny side of life.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.