Armand

The movie is a respectable effort in the art of Cinema although, even if it is filmed in color it is very nearly 'film noir' , muted colors and lighting throughout sometimes in the extreme; a scene in a classroom with the lights turned off ? The plot is too intricate and character's relationships to one another just seem a bit too cute to be plausible but there to tell the story and then you get more of their backstories as you get deeper into the movie. Look the acting is great and it explores an age old human dilemma where things are not what they seem and people act on their assumptions when when the facts are uncertain. I saw 'The Teacher's Room' which was outstanding this movie is similar in some respects but is not ' knitted ' together very well . I am glad I saw it but would be hard pressed to recommend it , if I had been streaming it at home I would not have finished watching it. The movie is just not straight forward in it's delivery and that is too bad; it had much more potential with drama and acting that def. Is present in the film.

This had so much potential and got off to such a solid start. Which was why it was a disappointment when the storytelling went off the rails in the last hour or last third of the film. At about two hours long, the elements that were included in that final hour that made the film go haywire could have been completely removed and the end result would have been a fantastic movie. The first part of Armand was gripping, as the audience watches the main character go through a roller coaster of a day with school administrators after being called in due to an altercation at her son's school. She is alone in trying to advocate for her son as she faced his accusers, poking holes in the claims made against him. The acting was great, and the characters were realistic and interesting. The moments of tension and discomfort were captured in a way that I think most of us could identify with. Where this fell apart for me was when the movie took tangents by including some scenes that felt pretentious to the extreme, making no sense and turning a story and characters that had been believable into something cringe, nonsensical, and plodding. I found myself fast-forward/skipping through those moments, as they added nothing to the story and were too annoying to put up with. I was getting angry by that point. It's unfortunate because this could have been a four-star film for me, but because it veered so wildly off course in the end, it dragged the entire thing down. Huge miss. Video review on my YouTube channel.

The debut feature film of Halfdan Ullman Tønder, grandson of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullman, is a partly allegorical, partly naturalistic dissection of 21st century parenting and educational system, and their handling of an "unfortunate incident" between two 6-year-old boys. Renate Reinsve is the eccentric mother of Armand, the alleged perpetrator in said incident, and as she finds herself scrutinized by her son's teacher, the school administration and the parents of the other boy, the film slowly descends into an interrelational abyss - a limbo from which no good things can ever emerge. Ullman Tønder's purpose and position are strong, and so is his artistic expression, which is discernibly inspired by the works of his grandfather, and perhaps also to a degree by Kubrick. And although the narrative as such at times feels bumpy and the film unevenly edited, Armand is in many ways a return and homage to pure cinema, for which it should be hailed.

Armand and the other boy, the centre of the story here, are absent. They are rendered psychologically dead by psychologically dead - or insane - parents.

What began as a gritty drama, turned out to be psychological horror. I suppose the Scandinavians are good at living the unconscious, manifesting the darkness. A bleeding nose in one of the characters signals early on that we are to spiral down, nauseated, into the madness of all the "adults". The feeling of vertigo is subtle and perhaps more terrifying than Hitchock in its normalised elusiveness. Empty corridors, staircases, and silent screams. A children's choir where children are voiceless. Two mothers who couldn't be more repulsive. Where does evil begin? "If you look at our image, you'll see only chaos. If you dig deeper, you'll find nothing else."

I can see why it won the Camera d'Or at Cannes 2024 but for the love of my life I could not follow the film after midway. A single celebrity mother is called to his son's school by an incompetent teacher and admin duo to discuss an incident involving his son and his friend. It's a great premise and Armand had my rapt attention, also thanks to the fabulous opening shot and overall camera work till then. But then it meanders into self-pleasure territory and I still have no idea what the director intended, with a melange of abrupt dance sequences and an actor laughing for 3 minutes in a stretch. That's where it all started and the whole affair gets frustrating thereafter to never recover.

(Watched at the 2024 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)