Pinpointing exactly what makes Force Majeure so disquieting is difficult, and a second viewing on DVD confirms this. Overall, the elements of the film are unified so smoothly that focusing on any one of them doesn’t indicate the unexpectedly powerful effect of Ruben Östlund’s dissection of the collapse of male character.
The impact could be a result of the director and writer's avowed reversal of the filmic hero trope. It could be Johannes Kuhnke’s intense depiction of father Tomas’s denial and subsequent breakdown in the wake of his transgression. Or it could be that such a sensitive theme ensures the male viewer's discomfort, leading them to question the nature of their own persona, as we see with Tomas’s friend Mats when probed by his girlfriend. In the end, what matters most is that Force Majeure is – despite being a little overlong – a powerful yet still entertaining film.
Force Majeure begins as what seems a Swedish-made, French ski holiday-set take on the most potent of Mike Leigh’s hyper-real domestic dramas: a Nordic reconfiguration of Life is Sweet perhaps. It quickly moves beyond this. Although exposure of the buried or unacknowledged fragilities within marriage and family life is often seen in cinema, Östlund handles it in a particularly squirm-making way. A scene at an evening dinner where Tomas’s wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) questions his version of events is a particularly awkward highpoint. The film is further rendered off balance by a seam of doubt running throughout. When Tomas breaks down, it is impossible to tell whether he is faking: just as he seemingly has been with his version of the events which have lead to this point. The effect of all this on the couple’s children is, at one specific point, very unsettling.
Beyond the trailer, the DVD includes just two other extras. One is a short, home-made film showing the director and one of his producers reacting to hearing the relevant Oscar nominations announced. The other is also a short, interweaving Östlund’s to-camera explanations of the ideas behind the film with on-set footage of a pivotal scene being completed – do not watch this before seeing the film. It would have been fascinating to hear the cast’s take but, from what is seen, it seems the execution of the vision is entirely Östlund's.
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