Reprise.

The other day I saw a movie that I liked very much on Swedish television. It was the Norwegian movie "Reprise", and unfortunately I missed the beginning. It's a movie about a group of young, intellectual men, and their attempts at writing literature and living in general. One of them (who could perhaps be called the main main character, out of two) writes a book that gets published and is declared a genius, but then meets a girl, and when falling in love with her, his mental breakdown is triggered. This is kind of the background setting for the development of the other main character as well, who strives to get published and still be supportive of his friend.

I was very impressed with this movie. It's delightfully made, the actors are great and the excellent narrative technique even adds a bit humor every once in a while, even though this is a rather sad movie. Still, it's not a depressing one, and it's actually hard to actually say what kind of movie it is. I found it to be uplifting and inspiring, but I suspect not everyone would share that opinion.

One of the characters I especially liked was the very serious and super intellectual Hitler Jugend looking Lars (who is later in the movie nicknamed "Porn-Lars", which is just incredibly perfect since it clashes completely with the nature of his character) who thinks that women are unable of intellectual achievements, that they are just creatures that can be filled up with knowledge by men, but can never think anything up on their own. His comment about how women in the eastern part of Oslo (the poorer part where all the immigrants live, and kind of where I live as well) at least acknowledge their inferiority and don't pretend to participate in the conversations of the "grown-ups" is excellent.

Here is an article about the movie (in Norwegian) and a scene from it.

Everyone with an interest in "intellectual" movies, that is slow ones without any extreme drama or action, should definitely watch this one. It kind of made me think of a book that I (along with everyone who has ever read it I guess) am a huge fan of: The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Are there any other books or movies that deal with groups of intellectual (and sometimes decadent) young people?