I wasn’t surprised to learn that Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, writer and director of Armand, is Ingmar Bergman’s grandson. There are touches throughout the film that call back to Bergman’s work, primarily Persona. Both films delve deep into the female psyche and take surrealistic diversions. Where Bergman reined it in though, Mr. Tøndel comes dangerously close to sending the film off the rails with his indulgence.
Elizabeth (played by Renate Reinsve) is a popular but troubled actress who’s suddenly called to her 6-year-old son Armand’s school, where she learns Armand may have done something unimaginable to his classmate Jon. Arriving at the school, Sunna (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen), Armand and Jon’s teacher, and Jon’s parents Sarah and Anders (Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Endre Hellestveit) are waiting to discuss what happened. Over the course of the next few hours, in the cavernous hallways and rooms of the Elementary School, secrets are revealed, betrayals happen, and no one will ever be the same again.
Most of Armand takes place in an Elementary School after hours. All the children have left for the day, the janitor’s quietly making his rounds and a few remaining teachers flit in and out of rooms like phantoms. This setting, combined with the small number of main characters, makes the film feel intense and claustrophobic. Even when the camera wanders through the vast empty school corridors (in some cases in a strikingly similar fashion to Kubrick’s shots in The Shining), the location still feels closed-in and oppressive, primarily due to everyone’s inner turmoil. The whole building seems to be filled with a corporeal cloud of resentment, jealousy, rage, ennui and regret emanating from the characters.
The film starts quietly, with Elizabeth, Sarah and Anders sitting in a classroom with Sunna as she tells them what allegedly happened between Armand and Jon. Sunna, a relatively new teacher, is totally unprepared to handle a situation like this. Ms. Vaulen imbues Sunna with a jittery desperation. She always looks like she’s one clock tick away from a nervous breakdown. Her performance reminded me of the great Sandy Dennis from the 1967 film Up the Down Staircase.
Sandy was the queen of playing neurotic characters but where Sandy’s character in that film was inspiring and triumphant, Sunna feels hopeless. She’s a gentle soul trapped in a harsh world and you wonder if she’ll ever find her footing in it. It doesn’t take long for Jarle, the principal of the school (Øystein Røger), and his assistant Asja (Vera Veljovic) to step in, reducing Sunna to a spectator as they try to get the situation under control.
Ms. Reinsve’s performance is phenomenal. Her character Elizabeth is quite different from the fun-loving dreamer Julie she played in the 2021 film The Worst Person in the World. Who can forget “the world is still” scene, where time stops and Julie runs to her potential new lover Eivind, dodging time-frozen people in the streets and shooting playful smiles at the camera?
Elizabeth is a much more complex and somber character. It’s hard to get a bead on her, especially since her character’s an actress. Are any of the emotions she’s showing genuine or is she putting on a grand performance? In the first 30 minutes of the film she waffles between being terrifying, hilarious, and pitiful.
In one scene, when Jarle recounts yet again the horrific thing Armand did and everyone is theorizing on what the next course of action should be, Elizabeth suddenly bursts into uncontrollable laughter. Director Tøndel elongates the scene into the surreal, making it uncomfortably long, keeping the camera on Elizabeth as she laughs loudly, a spasmodic laugh where she’s gasping for breath between cackles as Jon’s parents glare at her in horror and Jarle impotently asks her to stop.
Mr. Tøndel tosses surreal moments like that throughout the film, culminating with a scene at the climax of the film that has to be seen to be believed, with its frenetic Gaspar Noé-style choreography of many bodies contorting and grabbing at each other, with Elizabeth at the center struggling to escape. It feels more like something from a George Romero zombie opus than a psychological thriller.
Though they’re all visually fascinating, these diversions detract from a film that’s otherwise riveting, revealing its characters’ secrets like a flower slowly opening layers of beautiful petals. We learn more about Anders and Sarah and their strained relationship, including Sarah’s resentment towards Elizabeth’s success. Is it possible that Sarah just made all this stuff up to hurt Elizabeth?
Jarle is also a fascinating character but the film barely scratches the surface of what makes him tick. His past is linked to Elizabeth and Sarah and we get a frustratingly small amount of time with him. Still, the film’s a great little potboiler that keeps you guessing until the end. I just hope that Mr. Tøndel does a full-blown fantasy film for his next project, so he can give in to his penchant for whimsy within a more suitable genre.
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