(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
After Norwegian filmmaker Anja Breien recently showed his Hustruer (1975) in a prison in the French city of Rennes, there was a Spanish inmate who came over to her and said: "As it was in Oslo then, so it is in Spain access! "
Hustruer was a response to John Cassavetes Husbands (1975), and problematized a conformist, man-chauvinistic A4 society. Breien has often been linked to this film and to a more general feminist discourse in the Norwegian public.
The older filmmaker is still active and is getting a lot of attention this year. In April, a retrospective was held during the Minimal Short Film Festival in Trondheim, and in June the spotlight will be directed to the director during the Short Film Festival in Grimstad. Last week was Hustruer shown as part of a Norwegian focus on the Cinemateket in Prague.
Great diversity. Anniversaries are an opportunity to celebrate and at the same time shed new light on the anniversary. Wednesday 4. June The National Library will host a seminar on the occasion of Anja Breien's 75 anniversary. Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, head of film at NB, says that on the one hand it has been a point to emphasize some specific parts of Breien's work, such as Hustruerfilms and the gender perspective, while it has been important to "bring out the breadth of her production – which includes feature films, short films, fiction, documentaries, and a great stylistic and thematic diversity".
"As it was in Oslo then, so it is in Spain now!"
Hanssen says that NB has good preservation material for her films and that everyone is available for review. Several of Breien's films are also available on video and streaming services, and in August a DVD box is released with three of her most important works, which have not previously been released on DVD: The serious game (1977) Arven (1979) and persecution (1981). The former will also be shown at Cinemateket after the seminar. According to Hanssen, the film is "one of Breien's best films", although it is often forgotten. Breien thinks this choice is "excellent", partly because many people haven't seen it. Moreover, it is "in a way pushed out of the Norwegian film canon".
Auteur. The legacy has these days been actualized in connection with Joachim Trier's participation in the main competition in Cannes – Breien's film is the previous Norwegian film that was there. Like Trier, Breien has often been associated with the idea of the director as a personal visionary: auteur.
The term "auteur" has French origins and is often associated with a director who makes films with a clear personal vision – a filmmaker who expresses something personal despite the large collaborative system a film production often constitutes. A professional seminar that thematizes a single filmmaker, such as NB's marking of Breien, is an implicit recognition of such a personal focus related to film, but at the same time opens up for problematizations of established attitudes and perspectives.
Johanne Kielland Servoll has recently completed her doctoral dissertation The Norwegian author. A conceptual historical analysis (2014), and will during the seminar give a talk on «Breien's balancing art. About being a film artist in the 70s ». Like Ingrid Synneva Holtar, who recently completed her master's dissertation on Hustruer, she has pointed out how Breien and the idea of the author have a gender-political dimension. Holtar believes the term is "masculine charged" and relates it to "the challenges associated with including women in a male-dominated canon".
Solidarity Project. Holtar understands Breiens Hustruerproject as «a rejection of the director as an auteur, ie as a necessary strong, ingenious personality. [Breien] saw the director's role as a mixture between artist and administrator ». She believes "Breien's choice to distance himself from an auteur concept has a strong political and radical significance. It is precisely in emphasizing cooperation and solidarity [with employees] that Hustruer becomes a feminist challenge Husbands».
'It is true that Hustruer in a way was a solidarity project ", says Breien to Ny Tid. "We collaborated on the script, and the actors helped shape their own roles. The dialogue could be summary in the script, but with the 'turning points' marked. And we wrote the lines in detail together, the night before or while the light was set. " She adds: "Besides, they made themselves up – so in a way it was Hustruer a dogma film before the Danes. »
It is in the light of this production process that one should understand Breien's critique of the focus on the individual film artist. "If you talk about the author in the original, French sense, I think in the future we will need the author – he or she who goes his or her own way and makes his or her mark on the films, not least visually. It does not necessarily mean that the person in question is a special person vis-à-vis the employees. "
Wives IV. Anja Breien is precisely someone who has been able to combine a strong personal expression with a humble and genuine solidarity with the people she has filmed and collaborated with. She deserves not only to be celebrated for a historically rich filmography, but to be put in touch with the present. Holtar means a film that Hustruer is still very relevant. "Just the fact that it is a feminist classic that is fun and liberating, makes me think of the film as a good 'marketing' of feminism – in the middle of a time where one absolutely needs to be reminded of how fresh, spontaneous and progressive women's struggle could be in the 70s. ”
"Breien's choice to distance himself from an auteur concept has a strong political and radical significance. It is precisely in emphasizing cooperation and solidarity [with employees] that Hustruer becomes a feminist challenge. "
By the way, Breien has not given up. A little secretive, she mentions that one may eventually come Wives IV.
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