Every of the characters in Welcome to Utmark might be wherever in the world. New York, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Madrid, or northern Norway. However that element, the situation, makes them enticing as a result of it is not quite common to learn about Scandinavians; a lot much less if they’re in a city of the Sami neighborhood forgotten by God.
That is why the pimp, the alcoholic, the service woman or the trainer in this HBO (Europe) sequence have a specific allure: they will let you share a chunk of tradition. Like all fiction, Welcome to Utmark shouldn’t be understood as an anthropological or social essay on these inhabitants. However it throws concepts alongside these strains. It is then that the harshness of personalities, their relationship with nature or the best way of understanding love has a context on which to interpret.
Assist the work of the Danish screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson and the Icelandic director Dagur kari. They lead a manufacturing staff that gives a visible and sound expertise that is very pleasing to the senses, trustworthy to the HBO custom; particularly, by way of the images of Andreas Johannessen. Thus, they gave form to a plot that finds in humor a counterweight to such coldness. Welcome to Utmark is like a number of of its landscapes, harsh and exquisite.
‘Welcome to Utmark’:
between pressure and humor
Finn, performed by actor Tobias Santelmann. {Photograph} from HBO.
There are some sequences and atmospheres which might be reminiscent, by way of images and aesthetics, of True Detective. The sequence is removed from that HBO basic and can’t be thought-about a cop. However winks, particularly throughout open pictures in favor of the surroundings and breaks, are appreciated. That enables us to estimate how far Utmark is from a lot of what is recognized. The building-free skyline makes it simple to deal with the human situation.
Aakeson defined in Selection that he was impressed by productions like Fargo and Twin Peaks to construct his story. One of many challenges of Welcome to Utmark was the steadiness of the storytelling. At first it was considered a film after which it was this HBO sequence: “Tone is at all times a harmful factor to steadiness as a result of humor can devour seriousness and vice versa,” he mentioned. These components are exploited by way of unusual and placing characters, with the allegory of the wolf and the sheep as a relentless: who is devouring whom?
Thus, it might be defined that when a volunteer trainer arrives on the home the place she’s going to keep in Utmark, she is greeted by a funeral dwelling supervisor sleeping contained in the hearse. Or the story of that man who, in a second of deep loneliness, asks one in every of his prostitutes to decorate as his lifeless spouse to accompany him. What is carried out with the silence of the others?
Welcome to Utmark is a tragic drama, filled with pressure and laughter, in which varied themes are addressed – such because the racism, the homophobia, the human trafficking, the gender violence, the glass roof on girls – on a small scale by way of eight chapters.
The phantasm of childhood
Marin (Alma Günther) is the one sane particular person in Welcome to Utmark. She is a woman, daughter of Siri (Marie blokhus) and Finn (Tobias Santelmann) that is in fixed pulse with its atmosphere. The grownup’s relationship along with her, particularly along with her father and stepfather Bilzi (Stig henrik hoff) –Who at instances are extra infantile than the lady–, is based mostly on the truth that each train her tips on how to shoot with a rifle.
Solely in these moments is one thing like a father-daughter relationship acknowledged. In others, like when the trainer asks her about what a utopia is and she or he solutions that marriage is one, it exhibits how the harshness of her atmosphere influences her considering. Nonetheless, the present’s message is clear: Marin, a woman, represents the important and customary sense that nobody else has. As if that would solely be preserved throughout childhood.
Welcome to Utmark is so human that it may be uncomfortable and, in flip, comforting. For that reason, strains like that of Bilzi’s mom are a bit of warmth amid so chilly: “I can’t breathe, I can’t eat, I can’t shit. Past that, I’m positive. “
Add Comment