Som du ser meg / I Belong (2012)

Grete: It's survival. Accepting pain as part of life. Embracing it instead of avoiding it.

By Dag Johan Haugerud
With Laila Goody, Ragnhild Hilt and Henriette Steenstrup

I didn't know the director or any of the actors/actresses in this film, but watched it when Tumor suggested it as something I might enjoy. He was profoundly correct. In a quiet scene between one of the three protagonists' of the film and her husband, her husband recites the following poem by Philip Larkin which I believe encompasses all that the movie is trying to say. I've placed the poem below.

Talking In Bed  

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.

The premise of the film is communication--the ways and means of communication, the arbitrary ways in which the most innocent gestures can be read in an entirely different light, the problems this creates, and the isolation that surrounds it, and the difficulty in being able to express what you mean. But it's also a story about violence, I think, and the violence of every day interactions. The film deals a lot through and with writing, which is perhaps the one way through which introverted people can express what they are experiencing in its full complexity.

The film is a story within a story, beginning with a writer who is adapting her novel to an audio book and she chooses to read it out loud herself instead of using a voice actor (as the man handling the software dispassionately remarks on a few times, asking her to consider a voice actor). Her reading is even, low, and every day, but that natural tone sets the tone of the film. The film isn't talking about people with extraordinary events in their lives, but begins with the most banal incident--when some unidentified people slash the cars of three women who live in houses near one another.

The first story we witness is of a nurse who is told to mentor a student. She is a kind and sensitive woman who takes her job seriously, maybe even too seriously. She is so anxious about being a good mentor that she has difficulty sleeping and her husband reassures her that she will be okay. It's precisely because she worries so much about hurting the feelings of others, including the girl she is mentoring, that even when she has something negative to say about the girls' performance she does it gently. Moreover, she slips into English instead of Norwegian when stressed, which is particularly telling of the limits she goes to avoid hurting or criticizing others, or even defending herself. This results in negative repercussions for her as blame is pointed at her by both the intern and her superior, an extroverted woman who, though she takes her job seriously, arguably does not engage with people with the level of depth that she does.

What struck me most is that at the end of the segment, her boss asks her if she ever considered seeing a psychologist for her problem communicating. She makes this remark as though it's no big deal, while dressing in her expensive imported clothes, implying that her "excellent" communication skills took her further on in life and that somehow the whole situation could have been avoided if she were better at putting across what she meant, rather than acknowledging that the intern could have been reckless or not good at listening in the first place.

The second story is about a translator, an intelligent woman who had a traumatic experience growing up but overcame it gradually, putting her talents as a translator to build a solid reputation as someone with integrity and class, who translates a certain caliber of work. When a friend suggests she translate a book she has no taste for, she is torn whether to accept the job or not. The friend however manipulates her into accepting the novel, and, just like the boss in the previous segment, is unable to engage with the translator on the same intellectual level. Much like the previous segment, this too ends with the translator's integrity and reputation ruined, all because she wasn't insistent, or even violent enough to defend herself and her desired course of action.

The final segment takes a unique spin on the previous two stories in that in this one, much like the previous two segments, you have a more extroverted, higher class "superior" or someone in a position of power offering a portion of inheritance to her sister (and her niece). However in this case, both parties involved are doing their best to communicate, they are sitting in a living room and are discussing it thoroughly, but are still unable to explain to each other what they mean and what they truly want.

One of the women in the final segment makes an observation that I think reaches back and is applicable to the entire movie is that nothing and no act of kindness is done for "free". This concept resonates as in each of the earlier segments, what someone did as an "act of kindness" ended up costing them far more than they thought. In the case of the nurse, it cost her her own self respect and dignity, in the case of the translator, the critics looked down on her for translating a book that was defined as "chick lit", a book she never even wanted to translate in the first place, and in the final segment, even the dignity they got from not accepting the inheritance came with the price of a broken car and a heavy strain on what used to be a warmer and more loving relationship between the two sisters. In other words, it seems even communication has become a sort of trade, a jab for a jab, a violence for another act of violence. Those who are unable to retaliate in that way end up quite literally fucked, as in the case of the translator who was raped by those she deemed "friends". In the same way, all the characters in this film are symbolically violated by their "friends" --all through the medium of language.

I liked: The acting was superb, natural and absolutely moving. I loved the poetry, the symbolism, dialogue, imagery.

I disliked: This is minor, perhaps -- but I felt in many ways this film reinforced certain stereotypes. All the characters that weren't very assertive or who had shitty luck were cast as quite obviously the conventionally less attractive. Even though this in itself may have been commentary (as perhaps this is how the outside world views them?) it might have been more effective to show it without that bias.

90/100
I absolutely loved this film for its subtlety, it's grace, and the meaning and message behind it. I related with it particularly strongly and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone at all.