Thistle-3 North is a drama out of Norway, and from the looks of it, a pretty desolate part of the country. Jomar is a 30 year old recovering from some traumatic experience. He used to ski, now he can barely get off the couch to do his job, which is not very taxing. His woman left him, after trying to be patient and help him get his act together for some time. Jomar finds out he has a son with her, who is now four. That and another happenstance spur him to head North to find Linnea and meet this kid. Jomar is snowmobiling through back country. When he finds a house or fishing hut or tent, he stops and has various encounters with the people. It makes me concerned for my Norwegian heritage that Jomar and most of the people he meets seem to be completely nuts. He also ends up setting stuff on fire, on occasion. It's a disturbing, yet interesting, road trip. The audience at my screening seemed to find a lot of it hilarious, while I was busy being concerned. I give North a 7 out of 10.

johno-21 I saw this last month at the 2010 Palm Springs International film Festival. This is a quirky dark comedy written for the screen by Erlend Loe who also wrote a book that another great quirky Norwegian film was adapted from recently called in it's English title Gone with the Woman. Nord reminded me an an abstract sense of the film Little Big Man where the lead character goes through a journey meeting a wide variety of people along the way in wonderful small on screen roles with even an old wise and worldly Saami fisherman waiting to die instead of an old wise and worldly native American waiting to die. Jomar (Anders Bassmo Christiansen) is a former skier who works at a ski hill and has battled alcoholism and has been hospitalized with psychiatric problems since he lost his girlfriend five years earlier. After a fight with his former best friend Lasse (Kyree Hellum) he learns his former girlfriend had a son by him so he sets out on a snowmobile for an improbably long journey of a few hundred miles to northern Norway near the arctic circle. He meets along the way some very isolated people in Lotte (Marte Aumemo) and her grandmother, Ulrik (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen), and Ailo and his granddaughter. (Lars Olsen). Excellent winter scape cinematography by Phillip Øgaard and smartly directed by Rune Denstad Langlo this is not a long film and it's definitely worth a look. I would give this an 8.5 out of 10 and recommend it.

fistkov I felt that this film had a problem with the lack of story.Somehow the film starts brilliantly and there is a brilliant scene with a teenager boy who has, at the least to say, a lot of problems.Those were the brilliant parts of the film. I thought after the first 15 minutes, that this is going to be a masterpiece, but then it just dies. The plot vanishes and somehow the ending doesn't give enough to justify the lack of the plot.The main actor does a fantastic job and there is a lot of good in the cinematography, although I sometimes felt that this was an advertisement of Norway. There were so many landscape shots that you could easily get bored with them.The music choice was also a little bit odd. It sounded like a country-tune coming straight from Texas. Do people like country music in Norway? Even with it's problems, it is a nice film to watch as an voice from Norway.

gregking4 NORTH is a wonderfully droll, delightfully surprising, unexpectedly funny and offbeat road movie from Norway of all places. Jomar has been traumatized by recent events from his past and has sunk into a quagmire of apathy and indifference. But one day he gets out of bed determined to change his life. He heads out across country to visit his child, travelling some 900 miles by snowmobile and, when that breaks down, skis. Along the way he is literally burning his past behind him. The people he meets along the way also help him reassess his life and move on. Making his debut feature, Rune Denstad Langlo's direction is suitably low key and he delivers a droll and visually stunning movie that finds humanity in the loneliness of the long distance traveller. There is a winning performance from Anders Baasmo Christiansen, and the largely non-professional supporting cast adds to the film's eccentric nature. Philip Ogaard's rich widescreen cinematography captures the superb wintry, snow-covered landscapes, and Ola Kvernberg's beautiful score adds to the film's immense pleasures. A real winner!