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COOL & CRAZY Send This Review to a Friend
This Norwegian import may be the strangest musical documentary ever made. Picture the Berlevag Male Choir, consisting of men between their thirties and their nineties who have earned their living as fishermen living in the cold, icy terrain along the Barents Sea, singing a repertoire of ballads and choral favorites. The men are at once the subjects of the film and providers of the soundtrack that accompanies the close-up look at the life they lead and their environment. We listen to what they have to say in interviews. We watch work, including that of the local women, in the declining fishing industry hit by change. And we watch the choir perform.
At first the film seems as if it might turn out to be too much of the same, but gradually, thanks to its spirit and photography, one is drawn more and more into the strange world of this choir. The highlight is a trip the singers take to Murmansk, where they give a concert and are entertained themselves by brightly costumed Russian woman singers on the program. The audience seems enthralled and some seek the men's autographs. History is also acknowledged by the travelers when, during the journey to Murmansk, some note the tremendous losses of both Russians and Germans in World War II.
For the finale we see the men stalwartly assembled outdoors back home in the wintry mix of wind, snow and ice. They stand there singing with eyebrows, eyelids, mustaches and beards frozen, and even frozen mucus still attached to one man's nose in the grim cold. But this is a choir that will sing under any conditions, and by the end of the film so ably directed by Knut Erik Jensen, the men have captured our affection and admiration. A First Run Features release.
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