stellan skarsgard
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Freeze Frame: In Order of Disappearance
A blond, fair-skinned Swedish actor playing a petit-bourgeois Swede of the old school who resurfaces in the Norway of the overnight economic miracle, the ubiquitous Stellan Skarsgard looks as blank in Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland’s determinedly revisionist In Order of Disappearance as the snow-covered swaths atop the rural roadwork his Nils Dickman rips through at the helm of his commanding danger-signal-yellow snow plough. The 2014 masterwork is only now making its long-awaited U.S. debut. The color matches the baggy waterproof overalls that keep Nils’s sizable frame dry, and is just about the only hue outside of white visible during […]
by Howard Feinstein on Aug 25, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac
The use of Rammstein in a trailer is most often a very bad sign, but somehow it works here in the first — and very NSFW — full-length trailer for Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac. Previously, as Sarah Salovaara noted on this site, Von Trier and co. created a new form of trailer through the staggered release of clips. Today’s release is the more traditional — and to my mind, more effective — one. Abrupt changes in music and tone, a mixture of shooting formats and fantastic moments with Charlotte Gainsbourg create a vibe that’s not unlike a punk version of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 22, 2013 -
HANS PETER MOLAND, “A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN”
In Hans Peter Moland’s glumly humorous, sneakily moving Norwegian dramedy A Somewhat Gentle Man, a graying, ponytailed ex-con named Ulrik, played with droll aplomb by the always reliable Stellan Skarsgard, fumbles his way back into civilian life after 12 years in prison for manslaughter. He finds a job as a mechanic for a body shop owner (Bjorn Sundquist), who insists he be on time and stay away from oddly alluring office secretary Merete (Jannike Kruse). After finding a room in the basement of an aging, horny matron (a terrific Jorun Kjellsby), the sister of Ulrik’s former boss and petty crime […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 12, 2011
