THELMA

Norway, 2017, 116 minutes, Colour.
Eilie Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelson, Ellen Dorrit Peterson.
Directed by Joachim Trier.

Thelma was written and directed by Joachim Trier who made the International film about war and family, Louder than Bombs.

This is a closely focused portrait of a young woman, studying biology at a university in Oslo, from a religious family, high expectations of herself. However, she suddenly experiences a seizure which many think is epilepsy. She has some later experiences, goes to hospital, discusses the nature of the seizures with the doctor, the effect from personal pressures and imagination.

The film opens with a surprising sequence, hunter father, who is a doctor, with his little daughter on the ice, aiming at a deer suddenly turning the rifle towards his daughter. While he does not kill, there is a difficult relationship between the two although she is very fond of her father. There are further flashbacks which reveal that Thelma has some kind of kinetic powers, especially towards her siblings.

The plot is further complicated by her being unaware of homosexual feelings but their being stirred by her encounter with a fellow student, Anja, who initiates moves towards some intimacy, film is at first repelled, asking God to change her feelings, but succumbing to the relationship with Anja.

Although written by a man, this is very much a film for women to identify with, have empathy with Thelma, probe her character and problems – with a men’s audience more in a position of observing empathetically rather than identifying.

1. A Norwegian portrait of a young woman? Universal portrait?

2. The Norwegian settings, the city of Oslo, apartments, lecture halls, libraries? Social life for students? The contrast with her home in the country? The musical score?

3. The title, the focus on Thelma herself? The impact of the opening, the hunter father and his young daughter on the ice, the rifle focusing on the deer, his turning and aiming at his daughter? Symbolic of his attitude towards her? And her behaviour?

4. Thelma in the present, moving out of home, going to the University, studying biology, the lectures, the library work? Socialising? Her religious background, expectations of strict behaviour? Moral attitudes, attitude towards God, prayer? Her age, inexperience? The phone calls to her mother, the mother’s continued interrogations questions, her relationship with her father?

5. The encounter with Anja, friendship, Thelma not aware of her feelings? The party, drinking, the kiss, the intimacy? Thelma hurrying away? Not contacting Anja? The realisation of her feelings? Her prayers for God to take away her feelings?

6. The flashbacks to her childhood? The birth of the other child? Thelma playing, but the child disappearing from the cot, found under the bed, later found outside in the ice? The strangeness of her kinetic powers? The response of her parents? Especially of the father? The reasons for her mother’s concern?

7. Anja, her return, the intimacy between them? The effect on Thelma?

8. Thelma and her future? Her studies and her work? Her kinetic powers? Her understanding herself? Her fits, the diagnoses, the fear of epilepsy, the suggestion that her experiences