Frameline 34: The Man Who Loved Yngve

This sweet, fresh, funny debut feature from Norwegian director Stian Kristiansen about a teenaged boy's reversal of fortune after he falls in love with another boy is a pure delight from beginning to end, the sort that is intensified, like the experience of being a teenager itself, by passionate bursts of music from bands we haven't been listening to lately but used to, a lot - the year is 1989, the Berlin wall has come down, a sense of novelty has seized the imagination of Europe's youth, and the lavish promises of pop music, promises to do with freedom, power, sex, and knowledge, begin to expand as young, alienated, pissed-off Jarle makes new friends, joins a punk band, gets a hot girlfriend, and starts to flex his identity generally. The twists and turns of his journey are accompanied by the lush sounds of Joy Division, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, REM, Japan, The Stone Roses, etc. - and, as is probably appropriate to this time, this music, and this stage of human development, the effect is ironic, but not cruelly so - we still laugh with rather than at these characters, who are cheeky kids trying to be ironic themselves in ways they do not yet see are entirely conditioned by the culture anyway. That is, the film celebrates youth without taking it seriously, which is a happy way to reminisce about our own - similarities. And since the soundtrack makes reminiscing virtually compulsory, the light touch of this film is a real blessing.

Actors Rolf Kristian Larson as Jarle and Arthur Berning as his best friend Helge are so perfect their characters are unthinkable otherwise, a fact even writer Tore Renberg, whose novel of the same name is the basis of the screenplay, feels to be true now the film is completed. This 10-minute excerpt says more than I can about the film's very positive charge, about its inspired casting and bright energy. It doesn't cover the challenges that arise when Jarle falls in love with the new boy in class, the dreamy, tennis-playing, cloud-watching Yngve, nor the poignancy of the conclusion, but suffice to say the film just gets better and better. It has already won every award going in Norway since its release in 2008, and it deserves a lot more attention over here.
(NB trailer substituted for original clip because of legal shenanigans with youtube)