European Film Festival Reviews:

Appelsinpiken (The Orange Girl) 2009

By Madelene WIGHTMAN

The 2009 film Appelsinpiken by Eva Dahr is based on a book by internationally acclaimed author Jostein Gaader. The book is translated into 43 languages. Appelsinpinken is essentially about two love stories which run parallel through the story. While it is a nice and rather moving story in its own right, a great thing about the film is that a large part of it is shot in beautiful mountain scenery. The wonderful thing about cinema is that it can transport us to faraway places and if well filmed, can make the viewer feel that he or she is there.

The film begins with a scene of a young boy and girl playing together in a garden. The children climb trees, chase one another and laugh together. The scene then cuts to the present day, where a young man, (Georg)'s, mother presents him with some gifts and an unexpected bundle of letters. This correspondence is from Georg's father who he believes disappeared and left them shortly after he was born. Georg has a mental block about his father, and explodes in anger, believing that he simply left the family. Yet as the film progresses, he starts to recall elements of their lives together.

The principal love story is that of Georg's father, Jan Olav who has been dead for almost sixteen years. The story is told in a series of letters from Jan to his son, which have been kept until Georg comes of age (on his sixteenth birthday). Shortly after his birthday, marking this "coming of age", young Georg (Mikkel Bratt Silset) heads off from Oslo to the Norwegian mountains to ski and watch the stars. He takes his father's bundle of letters with him to read on the train, along with Jan's telescope in the hope of viewing a commet. Georg isn't so sure he cares about what this stranger has to say, but when he meets a pretty girl called Stella (Emilie Beck) on the train, his father's story of a mysterious young man that he first saw in 1982, a new meaning. Georg begins to avidly read is father's short story.

Jan Olav is struck as though by lightning the first time he sees the Orange Girl (Annie Nygaard), and is sure he has found the love of his life. Jan (Harald Thompson Rosenstrom) is riding on a bus one day when he sees a young woman get on board, carrying a bag of oranges. Jan is immediately smitten with her beauty and her smile, and he tries to help her when he drops the bag and the oranges scatter across the floor. When the woman steps off, Jan tries to follow her, but he can't find her, and for the next few weeks he spends his time looking for the woman.

His infatuation is like nothing else: the sky turns around and the earth disappears beneath his feet. Nothing else matters. Jan finally meets 'The Orange Girl' again and she asks him to wait six months for her. This is on Christmas Eve and Jan agrees. Six months later, he receives a postcard from Spain, asking if he can wait a little longer. Yet Jan is too impulsive to do this and jumps on a plane to Spain. He eventually finds the Orange Girl at an art academy there and as they talk he discovers that she is, in fact, the little playmate he had as a child.

Georg learns a valuable lesson from the father he never knew (and who he has often resented for 'leaving him' as a young child). He eventually to appreciate this mysterious man as an individual with his own hopes, dreams and challenges. The truth about Jan dawns on Georg under a magic Easter sky in the Norwegian mountains, but he has difficulties understanding his own feelings and grasping what is happening to him.

There are 20 years between his father's love story and the potential situation that may unfold between him and Stella. The letter helps him realise that he cannot let love slip through his fingers, especially as it turns out that the Orange Girl Georg's mother. Initially whilst away on the ski trip, although he is friendly with Stella, Georg finds himself pulling back from commitment. Although they see the comet that his mother and father saw the night that they got together, through the same telescope, this night does not end romantically. In fact, Georg pulls back from Stella and leaves in a hurry (in spite of the fact that he has shared his parents' with her). It is not until Stella gets back to Oslo that Georg has come to a realisation about what he is missing out on. Upon her return, he greets her at the station with a bunch of flowers.

Jan's and Georg's stories are woven together through the letter. Both stories tell tales of chance encounters that change their lives. Jan's letters turn out to be a general source of healing for Geog himself and for his relationship with his mother. The letters unblock the past and Georg is able to remember Jan caring for him as a small boy. Slowly the fact of Jan's diagnosis and terminal illness come back to him and eventually he visits Jan's grave to finally make peace with the past.

'Appelsinpiken' was an unexpected 'tear-jerker'. Initially it seemed that the film was simply going to be about a rebellious teenage boy. Yet this soon changed. Both the story of Jan and 'The Orange Girl', and of Georg's journey of self-discovery in the beautiful, bright mountains became gripping.

The intrigue later turned into poignancy as it became apparent that Jan's young life with his wife and son was to be cut short.

The fact that his wife was also his childhood playmate was very moving, given that she would now bring their child up alone. Also that Georg had been, in many ways, damaged by the absence of his father to the point at which he had blocked out memories of him. And that these memories of him resurfaced on the reading of the letters and on the understanding that he was the son born to Jan and his childhood friend. All the more powerful was the fact that Georg realised his mother was the mysterious, independent young woman that his father had been so besotted with.

The story is really an object lesson about how the people we most take for granted also have hopes, dreams and disappointments. It is very easy to cast someone mentally into a role, only to realise later that others may view the same person and their circumstances very differently. 'Appelsinpiken' was an easy film to watch, with a straight forward plot, whilst still absorbing the viewer.

It also provides the foreign viewer with an insight into the language, culture, landscapes and cities of Norway, a country sometimes described as 'Europe's best kept secret'.