(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
hooligans
Directed by Kari Anne Moe
photo: Nils Petter Lotherington
Kari Anne Moes documentary For the youth (2012) was originally intended to be a portrait of four Norwegian youth politicians. But after she followed Haakon from Young Right, Sana from Socialist Youth, Henrik from Progress Party Youth and Johanne from AUF for a year and a half, the terror hit 22. July 2011. And with that, the movie inevitably became a document of these events. Moe and her team had been to Utøya and filmed earlier on that fateful day, but were in the center of Oslo with Sana when the bomb dropped – fortunately not in the immediate vicinity of the explosion itself. Johanne was still on Utøya, and her retelling to the camera of what she saw and experienced there is the most moving sequence in For the youth. In addition, it also makes a strong impression to see the footage of the youth on the island from the time before the attack. Beyond the political speeches and discussions, we can witness them – most likely some of those who did not come from the island alive – to swim and enjoy themselves at the summer camp, in stark contrast to the almost incomprehensible atrocities we know will come.
Because of this unexpected turnaround, don't come For the youth so close to his main characters' individual motivations for pursuing politics that one might assume that Moe had intended. Instead, the film became a contribution to the workings of our collective trauma. Since she was directly hit by the terror on Utøya, Johanne inevitably gets a more important position in parts of the film than the other characters. Equally, Moe chose to maintain a structure where all four young people are equally central. This was probably a correct decision, as the experiences of others on July 22 are also relevant when drawing the picture of the terrorist attack. For example, Sana experiences that Muslims like her accused before the perpetrator are identified, while Henrik is confronted with Breivik being a former member of his own youth party. And so the film is in a sense true to its premise, despite ending up being something quite different than Moe had originally intended.
According to statistics, every six youth in Europe drop out of high school. In Norway, the figure is reportedly as high as one in three.
In her new documentary Pøbler, she has again chosen to aim the camera at a group of young people. Specifically, she follows some participants on the "Pøbel Project", an initiative initiated by baker and comedian Eddi Eidsvåg in 1997 to help young people out of work or back in education. According to statistics, every six young people in Europe drop out of high school. In Norway, the figure is reportedly as high as one in three. It is these dropouts which is the target group for the public limited liability company Pøbelprojektet – which according to its websites is "ideal" in the sense that the owners can not pay dividends, and that all assets should be transferred to the Red Cross youth work should the company cease.
Fly on the wall. This time, Moe has chosen a main character in 24-year-old Jan Olav, who has great reading and writing difficulties, a destructive temperament and a prison sentence behind him for gross violence. However, as the plural form in the title suggests, he is not the only central character in hooligans. Again, Moe follows four characters particularly closely, including the aforementioned protagonist. In addition, it initially seems as if the film should focus on Jonathan from Grünerløkka, but along the way he gets a somewhat more peripheral role than Kelly, Maylén and Jakob.
19-year-old Kelly was bullied when she was younger. 24-year-old Maylén has tattooed ADHD in her neck, and the diagnosis has obviously marked her life. Like Jan Olav, 25-year-old Jakob may also lose his temper, but even more has the hint of intoxication created problems for him over the years. Now they have had a chance to get in the cool through the Pøbel project, and for all four a lot is at stake. But the course makes requirements, including two mandatory rules: Participants must meet up precisely, and they must be drug-free. If not, they move straight out of the project.
Kari Anne Moe has said that the movie started with a phone from comedian Harald Eia, who is engaged in school dropout problem. Eia had been affected For the youth, and thought that the Pøbel project – which Moe apparently didn't know much about – could be something for her to make a movie about. Moe was skeptical at first when she thought that the theme seemed more appropriate for a more journalistic type of documentary than the observational approach she prefers. hooligans has, however, become a more consistently conducted "fly-on-the-wall" film than For the youth. The latter was admittedly mainly observational, but contained several sequences in which the four main characters spoke to the camera (including John's gripping retelling of his experiences on Utøya July 22). You do not see such interviews hooligans. In part, this is probably because the participants are forced to talk about themselves as participants in the Pøbel project – even on several occasions they are interviewed by the course leaders who try to maneuver them into the job market, while the camera looks from the sidelines. But it is undoubtedly also a consequence of the filmmaker having cultivated an aesthetic and narrative style, which dresses this documentary very well.
Popular theme. There is a long tradition of feature films set for classroom environments, from Richard Brooks' Blackboard Jungle created riots in the fifties, through the eighties Stand and Deliver og Dead Poets Society, to Laurent Cantet's Cannes winner classes from 2008 – to mention a small selection. hooligans However, there are also a number of Norwegian documentaries about youth and teaching, which also count Margreth Olin's youth cruelty, Hanne Myrens Jenter and to some extent also Rune Denstad Langlos 99% honest. Moe himself quoted Olin's documentary as a source of inspiration.
hooligans is not a movie about the Pøbel Project with all its history and methodology, but a portrait of some of its participants.
The mob project has been the subject of controversy, both in the form of discussions about how high the success rate really is and the disclosures of rules violations in allocations to this business. The film does not address this, nor is it considered particularly relevant. This is not a movie about the Pøbel Project with all its history and methodology, but a portrait of some of its participants. Still giving hooligans inevitably an insight into the course itself, without being a one-sided commercial for the project. One can take in the indulgent smiles of adult leaders who put in an excessive amount of profanity and other taken-for-granted "cool" phrases to speak the language of the youth, while the young participants, for their part, are strikingly well-worded. But there is little doubt that we are dealing here with some damn good people, who are doing a very important job of giving young people faith in themselves and their abilities. One does not have "holes in the resume", but accumulated life experience, as they say.
In working on this film, Kari Anne Moe has been on the course every day for its first six weeks, and has come very close to its selected participants and process-
late they go through. Her film does not claim that the Pøbel project offers only the right solutions, but leaves little doubt that the work done here is necessary. At the same time, it clearly shows that so-called problem youth are so much more than their problems.
Pøbler recently had a world premiere at The Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund, and is set to appear in Norwegian cinemas on 21 August.
Huser is a film critic in Ny Tid.
alekshuser@ Gmail.com
