National Post (National Edition)
A long-awaited return
NORWEGIAN DIRECTOR JOACHIM TRIER COMES BACK WITH A CHARACTER-DRIVEN HORROR FILM
“It’s just great to be back,” says Joachim Trier with a grin. Eleven years ago the Norwegian director brought the film Reprise to the Toronto International Film Festival and won the Discovery Award for first-time filmmakers. Now he’s back with Thelma, a supernatural drama about a young woman who simultaneously discovers love and mysterious powers.
Hauntingly scripted, beautifully shot, Thelma could be defined as a horror, but it’s a calm, characterdriven horror. Trier says he and writing partner Eskil Vogt were inspired by such allegorical horrors as Rosemary’s Baby and George A. Romero’s Season of the Witch.
The movie stars Eili Harboe as Thelma, who grew up in a rural community under strict religious parents; now she’s moved to Olso to attend university, but her feelings for another student seem to awaken in her a telekinetic power.
“There’s something about rooting for the freak,” says Trier of his main character. “Something about telling a story of alienation and being an outsider and trying to find self-love and self-respect. When that arose we realized we were not just doing nightmarish visuals. We were also telling a more humanist story. So those two things combined we were trying to balance.”
It made for some unusual research. “I was by day going to those more charismatic-type Christian churches in Norway and talking to people there, and in the evening reading about the occult to try to get an edge on snakes and fire. I was going through a strange exploration of the outer perimeter.”
Harboe had long wanted to work with one of her country’s best-known talents. “To me he seemed like a director who really knew what he wanted,” she says. “But I didn’t expect him to be so empathetic and open-minded to suggestions. After every take he’s by my side and suggesting where to go next, or asking me how I felt about that take and would I like to try something else.”
Thelma also stars Kaya Wilkins, a Norwegian singer-songwriter who auditioned on a whim. “This is a new thing,” she remembers thinking. “I’ve never tried acting before; I wonder what an acting audition would be like.” Then she met Harboe and thought: “I really hope I get this part.” Then she read the script and it became: “I can’t NOT be in this movie.”
Trier is an atheist, but says of Thelma: “It’s not primarily a story of believing or not believing. It’s more about the relationship between what we imagine and how that affects our reality, our idea of self. And religion can play into that in many ways.”
He adds: “I respect faith. But I’m also wary of the power structures put in place by religions that continue to suppress individual freedoms in many parts of both Norway and the rest of the world.”