“Armand” - Norway 2024 Oscar Submission

To be called into the principal’s office as a kid causes a specific type of terror. To be a parent summoned to school because of the actions of your child…that’s a different type of concern. It’s one that immediately strikes fear into the heart of almost any parent. What has my child done? What has been done to my child? Those two questions are at the heart of Armand, the feature directorial debut from Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel. Tøndel is the grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman. He understands that Armand is his chance to show that he can follow in the footsteps of the famed family members who came before him. Armand is a tightly wound morality thriller whose script begins with a banger, but ends with a whimper.

Armand is named after Elizabeth’s (Renate Reinsve) child. Despite lending his name to the film’s title, Armand the character is never seen. He is, however, the main topic of conversation. Elizabeth has been called to Armand’s school because of an incident. No one will tell her anything more than that something has happened at school between Armand and another boy, and it’s very troubling. The other boy is Jon, son of Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit). The audience isn’t immediately made aware of what happened between these two boys, but the three representatives of the school (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen, Øystein Røger, & Vera Veljovic) make it very obvious that it’s serious.

courtesy of IFC Films

The film opens with Elizabeth’s car careening through an idyllic forest. From the first image the audience sees, there’s an understanding that we are hurtling toward something treacherous. The camera appears to be mounted on the tail of the car with a fisheye lens that gives the impression of a magnifying glass, and of the claustrophobia that is to come. Armand doesn’t reveal all of its cards in the first few scenes, instead allowing them to unravel naturally through conversations between the parents and the school. It’s quite a white-knuckle journey as the audience tries to get all the information the various characters have, but it’s a futile effort. Humans, when their backs are against the wall, will choose themselves over the truth. Armand is a pressure cooker that offers pieces of information sparingly, each one yanking the audience further into this deeply intense, interpersonal drama.

Armand shares DNA with Anatomy of a Fall and Saint Omer. While Anatomy of a Fall and Saint Omer weren’t afraid to exist in the stifling courtroom and trust in their claustrophobia, Armand regularly breaks its tension through the starts and stops of the parent/teacher meeting. The film is just shy of two hours, and it doesn’t need all those minutes for what it wants to achieve. Too many secrets are revealed, and they take Armand beyond the realm of possibility. What starts as an extremely grounded piece of film ends too far from believable to be the morality play it could be.

courtesy of IFC Films

Visually, Armand should be a cinematography frontrunner in the awards conversation. Most of the film takes place in the school’s hallways, where there’s a brutal quality to the architecture. The characters complain of the heat, and a beautiful, wavy shimmer speaks to both the weather and the simmering tension between the characters. It amplifies the standout performances from Reinsve and Vaulen. Reinsve is most recognizable to American audiences from her breakout role in The Worst Person in the World, where Armand marks Vaulen’s first high-profile performance. The two are often at odds with Reinsve’s Elizabeth challenging Vaulen’s Sunna (Armand’s teacher) about her role as Armand’s primary caretaker at school. They don’t have loud, violent clashes, but the two play off each other in a compelling, conflicting way.

The struggle with Armand is in its end. Even with all the interesting questions it poses about mental health, jealousy, parenthood, and the procedures put in place to ensure a child’s safety, Armand offers the audience no resolution. It’s a disappointing turn of events for a movie that starts off in such spectacular fashion. Armand is a thriller that didn’t realize it had the necessary ingredients for a tense chamber piece without relying on surreal interludes to up an ante that was already high.



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