Just so...so bad

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Erik Poppe's Hawaii, Oslo (2004) is a very advanced, and very sophisticated example of Cinematic Art. In fact, it is one of the very best films that I have ever viewed.The technical side of the film, the cinematography, the editing, and the lighting is quite remarkable. It all goes not only to make this film very visually beautiful, but is done in a way to effectively interface with the characters, and the storyline itself, as to enhance the dramatic qualities of the film as well.The character selection, and the storyline is very complex, and thought provoking. The storyline involves the lives of a small number of people in Oslo, Norway, and the storyline spans just one calendar day. But in the course of that day, we see this group of people, many of whom never even knew each other before this day began, forming new relationships, ending other relationships, and renewing yet other relationships. All this happens in a spatial / temporal matrix where the characters in this group cross paths, both literally and figuratively speaking, through the course of the day. The storyline does consist of a good dose of "coincidence", some of which does strain credulity . Yet Poppe is even able to make the most unlikely "coincidences" in this storyline believable through a well written, well thought out screenplay, effective dramatic performances by the whole cast, and with effective direction.Overall, in this film Erik Poppe displays a very deep and complex artistic vision, an artistic vision that he quite effectively brings to a tangible realization in a remarkable display of filmmaking ability.20 Stars !!!

Hawaii,Oslo - Norwegian The best movie I have seen this year so far. This one was a very special , a very unique ethereal experience. I can feel my head cool and relaxed due to the blood flowing inside I guess. The movie was at the same intriguing , spiritual , hopeful , emotional.The script has as much content to extract five six movies out and I am surprised I don't see many awards linked to this movie on the DVD cover. It is about people placed in very very delicate situations and then things turning over magically. There is a father whose new-born son would die in a few hours as he is incapable of sustaining without the umbilical chord.The solution is to create an umbilical chord and fix back and the doctors have written off as impossible. The father does not give up and holds the straw of a private clinic operation at the huge cost of 900,000 Kronas that he cannot manage and he sells off everything and is about to attempt a bank robbery when another character in the movie robs the bank just before.The most joyous moment for me was when he sits dejected and one of the robber brothers, who runs away from the robbery .... edited to not reveal one of the many suspenses that the movie offers There is Leon who runs whenever he is not sure what to do next. The first scene of the movie is a dream that Jiddar(Leon's friend) sees and whatever he sees tends to be true. So he gets worried and tries to prevent the mishaps. The story goes through various situations where incident after incident, things turn positive and starts to move more and more away from the dream until the end when the first scene is repeated as it is. The movie is brilliantly engineered and has a lot of beauty to it. Lot of troubled lives trapped in cities. I would think that lot of the trouble would go off if people live together. A lady takes pills to suicide and is saved by a note message that one of her sons who has not seen each her in eleven years sends through a paper-girl. There is the plot of the robber brother who is given parole to meet Leon on his birthday.I started off by seeing this as a sweet gesture where as quickly a deep plan unfolds. The movie is rich. In story , in emotion , in acting , in direction - perfect control and an awesome awesome ride.

This is a remarkably well constructed movie that is fascinating to watch yet somehow manages to fall flat. The many characters race constantly around Oslo on an atypically scorching summer day (nobody seems to walk there, regardless of the heat and sweat, or to drive slowly) on their various frantic individual quests, briefly intersecting or passing each other unknown and unknowing, until they all come together magically in the end.As others have already said, there is much in this movie that is derivative of earlier movies, but a good movie does not have to be innovative. However, it does - for me - almost always have to make me care about the characters, and that is what this one failed almost completely to do.I cared about only one of the dozen or so main characters scurrying and caroming around the city like pinballs, and he was the least frantic, the most unassuming of them all: little Magne, the younger (and quieter) of the younger pair of brothers, played with exquisite, tender understatement by Ferdinand Falsen Hiis.Magne was like a small but solid rock in this swirling storm of a movie, and it would have been been crushed under the weight of its own overwrought melodrama without him. To use a contrasting metaphor, he is like the gravity that keeps the universe from spinning out into nothingness.Erik Poppe gets one star for choreographing this frenetic dance, and Ferdinand Falsen Hiis gets four stars for holding it together just by being in it. He makes it worth watching. ALL the adults are just too frenzied to either believe or care about.

I saw this film at the Rotterdam Film Festival and was absolutely shaken by it. As one of the people that commented before, the scene with the oldest of the two boys in the church just broke my heart. I've seen more films where things and people come together through faith, but never seen it so wonderfully done as in this film. Also, it leaves something to think about when you step out of the cinema. Basically the whole film being about true love between people in all aspects and in all the silly ways that people show this to one another, is too beautiful not to be appreciated for how it's filmed. Maybe you have to still truly believe in love to be able to appreciate this film. Ten out of ten.