We are happy to inform you that Titanic hosted
Anders Baasmo, lead actor of
North, a movie in competition for the
Breaking Waves Award. He met the public after the screening on Tuesday evening in
Uránia National Film Theatre.
The film, directed by
Rune Denstad Langlo who claimed to have been influenced directly by David Lynch’s
Straight Story, tells a real Nordic humour-spiced story of a depressed, bizarre hero (Baasmo) running amok in his home pants on the bleak Norwegian land.
The film is an absurd road movie or rather an ‘off-road movie’, since Jomar crosses the snow-fields in his snow mobile instead of taking the road. During his journey he encounters several characters even stranger than him who are mostly acted out by amat
eurs. The boy playing the „homophobe gay”, for example, has started his career as an actor, though. The girl who lives in the middle of nowhere with her grandmother was living in the same conditions when the creators of the movie found her but she dances and plays music, so acting is not completely unknown to her.
Anders Baasmo has been working as an actor since 2000: for example, in a TV series he embodied Henrik Ibsen, but the great breakthrough in his career was his role in
Buddy in 2003, awarded with the prestigious Norwegian Amanda Prize. In 2008 he was attributed the Hedda Award as
Hamlet which usually goes to the most senior actors in Norway. Next year he is going to play together with Liv Ulmann for whom it is the first role on the Norwegian stage after a long pause.
Baasmo and his company were just touring with
Hamlet when the director of North found him with the part.
Langlo had planned from the beginning to have Baasmo for the lead, so they drank a few beers together and the filmmaker told him about his life including a recent depressing period similarly to Jomar. They began to work on the scenario together. Baasmo comes from a small Norwegian town, so he is experienced in country lifestyle. He added that the movie did not exaggerate with regards to strange figures, depression, and alcohol abuse. The method to get alcohol into the body through a tampon is not the creators’ fantasy although the actor has never tried it yet. However, he can give evidence of the success in getting drunk by going on hands and knees or standing on his head.
The movie has actually caused a great turmoil in its own country as many say it puts Norwegians in an unfavourable light. However, our guest thinks the image presented by the film is credible: “We didn’t stop drinking throughout the whole shooting, why would we claim that our characters live differently?”
Anders Baasmo Christiansen left for Norway yesterday, but we hope to host him again next year.
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