Film recommendations week 40

Where: Trondheim Kino

This year's phenomenon in Sweden – seen by over 400,000 in cinemas!

When Lars Hammar retires after 40 years as a French teacher, he looks forward to a wonderful time filled with travel, wine, and experiences with his wife, Tiina. However, reality turns out to be different – Lars falls into passivity, much to the frustration of Tiina and their son Filip.

Then Filip gets a brilliant idea – to take his old father to France to relive the places that have meant the most to him. By recreating the family's old road trips, he hopes to reignite his father's zest for life. With help from his best friend Fredrik, a large dose of optimism and creativity, and an old orange Renault 4, the adventure can begin!

Where: Cinemateket

Akira Kurosawa's epic action-adventure in newly restored 4K.

The background to Kurosawa's idea for making Seven Samurai was the state of the Japanese samurai genre, "jidai-geki." It had become clichéd, with duels, war, and blood as the sole content. Drawing on the classic samurai themes, Kurosawa wanted to create a modern mystery play with a focus on moral aspects. Where the typical conflict in samurai films lay in the tension between love and duty, Kurosawa focused on the conflict between real life and the world of ideas. The story is set in the 1600s. For several years during harvest time, a small village has been attacked and plundered by bandits. The farmers have grown tired of this ritual and decide to hire samurai to help change their fate. But being poor, they can only offer rice as payment. They have no luck until they meet the elegant and wise elder samurai Kambei, who is touched by their willingness to sacrifice their rice and be left with mere scraps of grain. The exemplary Kambei sets out to find comrades. He assembles a powerful group of samurai, ranging from experienced warriors to a young, perfectionist apprentice. Kambei also shows his tactical genius by selecting one samurai more for his sense of humor than his fighting skills.

A Rarely Good Character Study

While Seven Samurai is one of the most grandiose action-adventures in film history, it’s easy to forget that it’s also a highly articulate human drama. The film is an exceptional character study, gradually revealing that each of the seven samurai fights for the village for personal reasons. Their motives are what make them sympathetic and interesting. Another important point for Kurosawa was to show that for the farmers, there is little difference between the bandits and the samurai. Their crops have always been taken from them, one year by bandits, another by samurai on military campaigns. In this way, Kurosawa shifts the issue into the realm of ideas: What is the difference between good and evil in a society? And what creates this difference?

Where: Streaming

Will Ferrell's good friend Harper comes out as a trans woman, and the two embark on a road trip to strengthen their friendship and help Harper find her place in the U.S. as her true self.