OUT STEALING HORSES
Norway, 2019, 122 minutes, Colour.
Stellan Skarsgaard, Tobias Santelmann, Jon Ranes, Bjorn Floberg, Danica Curcic, Sjur Vatne Brean, Gard B. Eisdvold.
Directed by Hans Petter Molland.
This is the story of an elderly man, Trond, played by Stellen Skarsgaard, who retires to a hut in the Norwegian countryside after the death of his wife. He prefers to be alone, managing, but encounters and neighbour with whom he begins discussions – and finds that he is someone he knew when he was young.
In fact, the main action takes place in 1958 (with some flashbacks to the war period as well as some flash forwards). At this stage, the old man is 15, on a summer holiday with his father with whom he is bonding. They have activities together, go fishing. His father is also involved in logging, cutting down the trees, stripping the bark, loading the logs onto the water to carry them to their destination.
He goes on and outing, to steal horses, with a friend and neighbour, Jon, who is rather taciturn. It emerges that the day before Jon was supervising his younger brothers when there was an accident, one of them dying. The survivor was Lars – and suspicions that he was responsible for the death of his brother, not just an accident. This brings the boy’s mother back for the funeral, the audience seeing the tension between her and her husband, discovering that she had a relationship with Trond’s father. Trond himself becomes infatuated with her – distracting his father’s attention leading to the injury of the woman’s husband and his disappearance.
There are complications from the war and shielding Resistance members and getting them to Sweden.
Trond is upset as his father never returns home although he leaves money for he is wife and son.
A complex Scandinavian drama exploring relationships and Lars is the neighbour in the 1999 sequences.
The director also made the thriller, In Order of Disappearance, which he remade in the United States with Liam Neeson, Cold Pursuit.
1. The Scandinavian world? Norway, Sweden? In past decades?
2. The title, the events, the boys, the horses, the accident? Symbol?
3. The time structure: the present events in 1999, flash back to 1958 and the core action, back to 1943, two 1956? The effect of this mode of storytelling?
4. The film as a memoir, from 1999, the press and setting off memories of the past? Trond and his dealing with the past?
5. Trond, saying that he was lucky? In what sense? His status as a widower, memories of the accident, the death of his wife, his driving? His hiding, living solitary, the winter, driving in the snow, the truck with the logs, his lack of concentration, the crash, going to the garage to get it fixed, his talking about ambitions with the technician?
6. His seeing Lars, hearing him calling for the dog, the conversation in the night, the introductions, the later encounters, the meals together, Lars helping with the work, the sharing of stories?
7. Trond and his admiration for his father, practical? 1958, at 15, the bonds with his father, the holiday with him, work together, the sauna and the snow? The father talking about knowing when it hurts? His friendship with Jon, going rowing, standing on the log, searching for the horses, riding, his fall, the barbed wire injury? The puzzle about Jon?
8. Going to the day before, the two boys playing in the house, Jon and his lack of supervision, one boy shooting the other? The father hearing the shot and running? Travelling to get the mother? Her reaction? The funeral, the prayers and sadness, Lars and his behaviour?
9. Trond’s father, the logging work, the felling of the trees, the help from Franz, the mother coming to help, the hard work, felling the trees, the bark? Trond and the attraction to the mother? His father’s distraction, Jon’s father breaking his leg, bitterness, and Jon gone to sea?
10. Trond, his moods, different moods with his father, their sharing, the tensions?
11. Franz and his story of the war, Trond’s father and his escape, the liaison with the wife, rescuing the man who was shot by the Germans? His staying for two years?
12. Trond, the lumber, the logs jammed, the hopes, father and son writing, Trond diving and freeing the logs?
13. Going home, the end of the summer, at the station, his father not returning? The mother at home, his sister, receiving the letter, reading it out? The issue of the bank, the money? Travelling to Sweden, the small amount of money, the mother buying the suit, pride in her son? Trond and liking the suit?
14. Trond and Lars, Lars telling the story of the farm, Jon coming back from sea, his leaving at the age of 20, never seeing his mother again? Never going back to the farm?
15. The visit of Trond’s daughter, searching for him, breaking his solitary life?
16. The theme of luck, Trond’s perspective on his life was lucky? Whether he was a hero of his own story – and the opening of David Copperfield? The issue of choices, his not hitting the man in Sweden angrily, making his own life?
