The Wave (Bolgen)

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Roar Uthaug/Starring: Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp, Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Fridtjov Saheim and Edith Haagenrud-Sande

A film like The Wave (Norwegian title; Bolgen); Norway's candidate for the Oscar's Best Foreign film shortlist, might have been rejected due to its disaster-flick premise, which probably scared the not-always-adventurous Academy committee. But though a natural disaster is the narrative centerpiece of Norwegian director Roar Uthaug's pulse-quickening, riveting film; this is hardly schlocky, Hollywood nonsense. Uthaug's film is touching and intelligent; emotionally invested and more closely connected to science and real-world natural phenomena. The Wave might call to mind films like Force Majeure or The Impossible; stories of families sundered or brought together by a disaster or near-disaster, but Uthaug's story calls attention to a real, imminent catastrophe; one lurking in Norway's future.

Kristoffer Joner plays Kristian, a Norwegian geologist in the process of retiring from a station that monitors mountain seismic activity in Norway's fjords, more specifically, the Geiranger fjord. When the film begins, we see archival footage of two disasters that literally shook Norway in the early part of the 20th century; devastation wreaked by the collapse of two separate mountain sides, which triggered massive tsunamis; claiming many lives and reducing property to rubble.

Kristian's wife, Idun (the lovely Ane Dahl Torp), his son Sondre (Jonas Hoff Oftebro) and young daughter Julia (the unbelievably charming Edith Haagenrud-Sande) busy themselves with the logistics of a move, which will take them from their idyllic mountain home to their new digs in the city. We see the emotional impact the move exacts on Sondre, whose sentimental attachment to rural life leaves him a little resentful of his father. Though Idun's position at a tourist hotel in the area is directly effected by the move, she is supportive of her husband's career move as a consultant for a prominent oil company.

While Kristian's colleagues celebrate his send-off with cake and heartfelt sentiments, he becomes troubled by what he sees on the stations seismic monitors, which track and measure all movement on the steep mountain side of the Geiranger fjord. Any collapse of the massive rock face threatens to unleash a deadly tsunami 80 meters high; a frightening prospect to tourists and residents of the fjord.

Kristian's colleagues dismiss his anxieties about the anomalies in the station's data, which temporarily allays his fears. But as every disaster flick aficionado knows, a scientist's forewarning is usually ignored, to the detriment and danger of all.

But Kristian isn't easily deterred. An anxious moment en route to their new home causes Kristian to abandon the drive to revisit the station, where his forceful admonishments urge a field inspection of one massive rock face, which threatens to separate from the mountain.

Kristian's detour to the station becomes a protracted affair, causing his son and daughter to abandon his vehicle for the hotel his wife manages. As their move is temporarily delayed, Sondre accepts his mother's offer to stay in the hotel while Julia joins her father back at their now-empty home.

We know sooner or later, the worst will come to pass; which is what happens while Kristian and his daughter make ready to leave the family home. The tension and drama Uthaug has painstakingly developed pays off in a terrifying way as Kristian, Julia and scores of motorists seek higher ground while Idun desperately urges the hotel guests to board a shuttle to safety. Complicating her efforts is Sondre, who wanders the basement with his headphones on, unaware of the commotion above.

The ordeals that follow for the residents and tourists, not to mention Kristian and his family, are unbelievably harrowing. Filmed with technical precision and a fidelity to realism, the family's struggle to survive the tsunami's fury translates to exciting and gripping drama. And unlike the cartoonish characters and situations in all Hollywood disaster movies, there is nothing cartoonish about what we see in Uthaug's film. Hollywood disaster flicks avoid the ugly aspects of death; opting for long shots of urban devastation, earthquakes and tidal waves that leave the audience emotionally detached. The Wave shows us how the struggle to survive a catastrophe means becoming intimate with death in all its unforgiving aspects.

I had a few, albeit minor problems with the story on which I can't elaborate, for fear of giving away too much.

Many might say the film is The Impossible set in Norwegian fjords, which is true only in the most superficial ways. I must say I detested that film in spite of its technical brilliance. I didn't feel any emotional connection to that family and the film made a white family's survival of paramount importance when thousands of Thailanders lost their homes and lives. In Uthaug's film, all lives matter (though in fairness; they are all white).

Another quality that separates Uthaug's film from scores of other disaster films is its commitment to science and scientific accuracy. For once, scientists in a disaster film sound and behave like people who understand the technical terms and jargon they utter.

The end subtitles tell us a collapse is inevitable though scientists are unable to tell when it may happen.

If one is to make a highly realistic film about a natural disaster, it is necessary to have a cast who can be affective while executing elaborate stunts on rubble-strewn sets. The roles must have been physically and mentally demanding and in Joner, Torp and Oftebro's respective cases, grueling feats of endurance were probably necessary (I won't elaborate on that either).

Though Uthaug's film got short-changed on the Oscar ballot, that hardly diminishes its power. The Wave is the kind of film that induces a sense of wonder. It shows us nature at its most implacable and humans at their best and worst but most importantly, it is an absorbing story.