Trier, in films as diverse as "Reprise," "Oslo, August 31st," "Louder Than Bombs," and now "Thelma" (all of which he co-wrote with Eskil Vogt), effectively taps into the undercurrents of dread running through human beings' lives. The dread may not have a specific source, although it can become focused, expressing itself in suicide attempts, heroin addiction, the isolation that comes with depression. Trier's films are filled with a tragic kind of knowledge, the knowledge of what it means to struggle, but also the knowledge of what it means to stop struggling. The dread in "Thelma" is not so easy to pin down, coming as it does almost totally through Trier's choice of visuals. Shot in cinemascope, "Thelma" often switches startlingly from a micro view to a macro. This completely destabilizes the point of view of the film. From a closeup of Thelma's face, Trier moves suddenly to a crane shot showing the exterior of the building she's in, before moving back to a closeup. This choice flings you out of balance. You literally do not know where you are.
Some aspects of the story work better than others. Thelma's detective-work in piecing together her own past is less riveting than her desperate swoon into sexual feelings with Anja and her torment about it. Like "Carrie," "Thelma" works on a metaphorical level, making manifest a culture's phantasmagorical fears about women's bodies, women in general, and showing the shared investment said culture has in repressing womens' sex-drives and rage. But, also similar to "Carrie," it works best when it stays specific, grounded in this one woman's singular experience.
Young Harboe's intensity is reminiscent of the young Isabelle Huppert, and she has a similar fearlessness in flinging herself past normal comfort zones of emotion, her slim body wracked with terror at its own power. Also reminiscent of Huppert is Harboe's slightly "cut-off" quality, which can make her seem like an innocent in a corrupt world, OR the only one in any room who truly knows the score. The journey Harboe goes on as Thelma is shattering to watch.
Emotion, like matter, has substance, weight, heft. It exists. It cannot be destroyed. What happens when you say to a deeply feeling young woman like Thelma, "It is never okay to express any of this"? Where is all that emotion supposed to go? It is this question that Trier, an extremely empathetic filmmaker, cares about the most.
Warning: There’s a scene involving strobe lights that may be seizure-inducing for those with epilepsy.
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