Force Majeure
Feb 08, 2015
(2014, Sweden/Denmark/France/Norway, DCP, 118 min)
Our house manager Chris Day calls it “the funniest movie of the year.” A brutal indictment of the pillars of nuclear family and normative masculinity in the foundation for human interaction in organized society, Force Majeure presents a picture-perfect Swedish family of four and unravels them with agonizingly funny effects.
After the father abandons his wife and two children in a moment of emergency while on a ski vacation in the French Alps, there is no going back to the facade of familial harmony proclaimed by their matching pajamas. Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and this year’s official Swedish Oscar entry.
- Part of our series In Case of No Emergency—get a series pass and see all of Östlund’s films at a discount: $35 ($20 for Film Forum Members) >
Screens with:
Incident by a Bank
(2009, Sweden, 12 min)
Based on a real-life account of a bank robbery witnessed (and filmed) by two bystanders across the street, Östlund’s study of surveillance earned the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale. His slow zooms and pans across vast public spaces —and his implicit question, “who watches the watchers?”—may remind some viewers of Michael Haneke’s Caché.