alr

Cool and Crazy
(Heftig og begeistret)

Screening on Film
Directed by Knut Erik Jensen.
With Members of the Berlevåg Male Choir.
Norway/Sweden, 2001, 35mm, color, 105 min.
Norwegian with English subtitles.

Winner of both best film and best documentary awards at the Norwegian International Film Festival, Knut Erik Jensen’s self-described “docu-musical” has become an international phenomenon on the festival scene. Known for his formally austere and challenging features Stella Polaris and Burnt by Frost, Jensen makes a 180-degree turn here by focusing on the members of the Berlevåg Male Choir, a group of older, working-class men from a depressed northern fishing village. Though their incomes have been hit by successive closures of fisheries, the rehearsals and occasional public performances they share provide a psychic balm and emotional shelter. Jensen shows the group on a tour to Murmansk, Russia, performing to wildly applauding Russians, and laces his depiction with humor and touching meditations on nature, human resilience, and the power of music.

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