Why Now its Dark is a remarkable timely and intuitively good film.
I do not know Arild Ommundsen and Salmonson very well. Arild and I just dont mix,
its a personality clash and Artistic demur. However, Silje Salmonson and I, together
with Vegar Hoel acted together and won the Grimstad Gul in Pål Jackmans short film
Benny. So we 3 have respect. I sat down in the cinema alone on Monday, thinking, is
Arild going to be able to pull off this Post-Lynch thing. The `Fake” prefilm
commercials were hardly over when a cinematic fog breathed over the screen. Has the
film begun i was thinking. Wow, i am actually drifting into the Fog. This is actually
Good! Very Good. Down the Rabbit hole, here we go..
Timely: I am going to steer you away from this Post Lynch Syndrome. There is a
reference to the film as is Alice in Wonderland, also. However, Now its Dark reaches
far beyond these two known idioms.
Let us walk with Lene (Silje) into a Derive, Guy Debords Situationist mapping Paris,
France 1967. These ”psycho-geographic guides” or Wanderings created a Non-
Linear mapping, a cognative vision of how all things are interconnected, through
coincidence, intuition, chance, biology, geology,memes,genes and senses. This is the
Brilliance of Now its Dark. It is such an extrordinary mess work of coincidence
characters all woven together where the ”Parts have a Casual relationship to the
Whole.” Damn, we just entered the parmetrics of contemporary philosophy. ” Milieu
has neither beginning nor end, but is surrounded by middles,in a field of connections
and complex affairm comprising a potentially boundless field of phenomena, some
palpable some imaginary.” (Mapping Michel Serres)
Now its Light. Now its Dark`s profundity is the accomplishment of weaving
together our local intelligent art milieu into a profound Guide of how we will navigate
the future. The post fossil fuel stage is no longer a linear top-down abstract narrow
field of vision. The other ”fake films” tried to make believe that everything was one
neat and ordered package deal.(Black Panther) Lene in Now its Dark just revealed
that its a for more complex process and the rewards of this process will be far more
complex and inteconnected then lastest model off the Fordism assembly line.
Now its Dark is an assemblage of casually connected characters in real life. The tone
of each scene is much more than its screen value. Johan Harstad reading himself. And
did i not by chance hear Vegar Hoel on the radio years ago reading Buzz Aldrin,
What Happened to you in All the Confusion.. The Weave Meshes. And here he is on
screen offering Silje a cup of tea, ”Tea that will wake you up.” The radience of Pia
Tjelta voice as a siren. Kristoffer Joner`s Psychic In-Balance, Thomas Dybdhals
musical interlude derive ascending. Ole Christoffer Ertvåg joining the Connectivity.
The 3 boys in the music shop is their real life living room? Now its Dark is a Mille
Plateau Assemblage. (Deleuze/Guattari) A topology of relationships in the new world,
one of climate change, immigration and migration, where the only thing that is fixed
is your intuition, ” Your intuition is your best Friend.” The relationship of the Parts to
the Whole is of mutual casuality. It is an open system, that organizes itself ( selforganization)
by exchanging matter, energy and information with its environment.
Lene drifts through this interconnected environment morphing, searching. Then it is
not the concept, the goal that is the Attractor, it is the Process. Now its Light..
The credits at the end of the film read: Script, Lights, Camera, Special Effects by
Arild Ommundsen. That just blows me away. Arild, Silje, you Made It! Respect.
This is one of the best Norwegian films invented. Right up there with Robert
Altmans Short-Cuts and Paul Thomas Andersens Magnolia.
Go and See Now its Dark several times….Randy Naylor