Little Eyolf as a contemporary art film. A review of The Frost

The fact that the works of Ibsen are staged in theatres all over the world, every single week, throughout the entire year is documented by the repertoire database found on Ibsen.net. For directors, actors, script editors and other theatre professionals every year is Ibsen Year. But when works by Ibsen are to be produced as films, and in particular, be distributed, it is another story altogether. The Ibsen film landscape is somewhat impoverished; I believe conditions were more fertile in this sense during the silent film era. Because while Victor Sjöström’s Terje Vigen (1916) has been twice rescored since the year 2000, we are still waiting for the opportunity to see Aakasha Gopuram (Castle in the Air) (India 2008, based on The Master Builder) here in Norway. And Uwe Janson’s Peer Gynt (Germany 2006) has been broadcast several times on ZDF-Theaterkanal, but as far as I know it has not been shown in Norway, although the prominent Norwegian film critic Per Haddal made an appeal for this in 2008 when he issued the pronouncement "The ball is in NRK’s court!"

Chances are that you have neither seen the new film The Frost, a Spanish-Norwegian co-production based on Ibsen’s Little Eyolf from 1894. The process has been a long one for this original project, but the result is a likeable art film that has the quirky feature of dialogue in four languages.

The film opens with an image of a dark Geiranger fjord. The remainder of the film also takes care to show images of timeless Norwegian nature without the customary idyllic slant: cutting winds and a drifting current across a pier that also serves as a parking lot are not exactly the stuff of tourist brochures. This landscape is the home of Alfred and Rita with their son Eyolf. There is also a legend connected to this place, a legend about a dead man who lies frozen in ice on the mountainside.

The main character Alfred is played by Trond Espen Seim. Norwegian viewers are accustomed to seeing this actor in completely different types of roles, but in this case he plays the remote main character we can recognise as the one penned by Ibsen’s hand. Alfred is married to the beautiful and captivating Rita (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), but it does not appear as if he knows exactly what he is doing with her, although he certainly thinks about it a great deal, as he does many other things: "There is a great deal to think about here in this world, a great deal to understand" is his conclusion. Little Eyolf’s composition is in part structured around how different Alfred is from his passionate wife. This is also a theme in the film. "This morning I put on sexy underwear and waited" is one of Rita’s lines, spoken to her husband while he continues to think. He wants to have another child with his wife, but the reason is because "they owe it to Eyolf". With an irony that is wholly Ibsen-esque, Eyolf is injured following an episode during which his parents were more preoccupied with one another than with taking care of him. After the accident Alfred has attempted to complete his book about human responsibility. This work is not proceeding particularly well and he is brooding, but not solely about responsibility; guilt has also become a faithful companion.

Visually speaking, the film is well done. A number of scenes work very well, such as a scene from Eyolf’s funeral in which Trond Espen Seim (Alfred) and Eva Mørkeset (Asta) engage in conversation and playful antics against the backdrop of a bright sunset, while Rita observes from the window. Aitana Sánchez-Gijón creates a portrait of Rita’s development in a sensitive and intimate manner. Her voice is precise and brutal when after Eyolf’s death she says to Alfred: "Here we are mourning. Mourning a little stranger." And later she is the one who represents hope and belief in the future through her wish to work at the local orphanage. We are able to believe that she will manage to work with a certain dignity, even though she will perhaps not be freed from guilt.

In spite of the fact that the pace is a bit sluggish and the sound can at best be described as irritatingly powerful and irregular, the film can be situated in a dark, art film universe. It is for this reason a shame that Bibi Andersson’s character been taken from the popular comedy tradition, complete with the requisite pick-up truck and histrionics. Bibi Andersson has been in an Ibsen film before, in a little known version of An Enemy of the People (George Schaefer 1977), where she played one of Ibsen’s most boring female characters, namely Mrs. Stockmann. This time she is playing an entirely different type of character, a thankless old woman called the Rat-Wife. She hunts and traps rats in the area. Her sparring partner is a disturbed and uncontrolled man who is called Mopsemand: "You are a clever boy. Now don’t be frightened, it’s only Mopsemand my darlings," she says when they stop by to visit the Allmers family while out hunting. Only little Eyolf (Marco Valle), a dapper young lad who resembles a young Leif Ove Andsnes, finds the pair of them fascinating and accompanies them on an outing. But Rita is proven right in her assessment of the Rat Wife as "dangerous".

I don’t know what happens to the Rat Wife, because it is at this point that Asta delivers the words of truth about the experiences that are a part of life: "Water lilies like wounds on the water surface," she says while painting a picture after having had a kind of premonition in a snow covered forest. Perhaps it is here that we are to experience how the boundaries between reality and dream become confused, as the trailer suggests. The camera aims at a kind of nature-mysticism, which hints at all the things that remain unsaid between the characters. The film is also optimistic in the sense that there is a willingness to process painful memories: some rise to the surface while others will remain icebound.

The Frost will visit film festivals in five countries this autumn, and I believe that festival audiences may well enjoy it. And with images from Giske, Godøy, Ålesund, Geiranger and Gudón (the Spanish Pyrenees) there should a bit of enchantment for adventurers of Alfred’s calibre.