hidden agendas
by
Douglas Messerli
Dag
Johan Haugerud (screenwriter and director) Drømmer (Dreams) /
2024
Of the three films that make up Dag Johan Haugerud’s truly wonderful Oslo Trilogy, for me Dreams is my least favorite, not because it doesn’t have excellent actors, a lovely story, and brilliant direction, but because it is the least reasonable of the three, important in Haugerud’s case since his films are almost entirely about the reasonable explanations that people provide for sexual attitudes and behavior, and how in the Norwegian context, others listen and, even if they disagree or disapprove, calmly discuss the events.
In
this work, the subject is a young teenage girl, 17-year-old Johanne (Ella
Øverbye), who, after reading a fiction about a romantic relationship between
student and teacher, herself develops an infatuation for her own French
teacher, also an accomplished weaver, Johanna (Selmoe Emnetu). As in almost all
of Haugerud’s trilogy, despite the quite obvious signposts that Johanna should
have picked up on, she encourages the young girl in seek her out at home for
knitting lessons.
Late in the work, she argues to Johanne’s
mother Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp) that she had utterly no idea that the young girl
was attracted to her sexually and was fantasizing a relationship between the
two of them, hard to believe particularly since the Johanne, in the later days
of their relationship, has even become very tactilely involved with the older
woman, stroking her arm, and almost pleading for a sexual engagement.
In
this work, a great many individuals cannot quite perceive their own failings.
The grandmother, herself a writer, Karin, to whom Johanne first confesses her
feelings and permits her to read the manuscript of her imaginary affair, at
first is highly impressed by the literary quality of her granddaughter’s
writing, and even connects her with a literary agent. But after the agent
herself declares how truly significant she also feels this young girls romantic
autobiographical work is, Karin, who herself is now suffering writer’s block
because perhaps she is simply too old to imagine to recreate such feelings,
almost turns on her own granddaughter, discouraging her from seeking out publication.
And this comes after the fact, moreover,
when she has, over Johanne’s objections shared the text with the mother
Kristin. Kristin’s first reaction is filled with shock and startlement about
the whole series of events, so much so that she even contemplates reporting the
incidents to the school, which would result surely in Johanna’s being fired and
perhaps even labelled as child abuser.
Fortunately, when she reads the manuscript
for a second time, she perceives her own daughter’s skill at describing her
feelings, and perhaps realizes that much of it is simply the product of the
young girl’s desires and imagination, and is willing finally to even encourage
Johanne to seek its publication.
In almost every case those around Johanne
keep changing their perceptions about the truth of the matter and even the
value one should place on the youth’s interpretation of events. They
reconstruct what for Johanne is reality to meet their own needs as desires as
mother, grandmother, teacher, and outside observer. The real “facts,” or the
way the teenager reads reality, are continually transformed into something
other that the truth of her own life. Even the way Johanna begins to pull away
from her, hinting at other loves and relationships, seems to the young girl as
a painful revisioning of the love she feels in every pore of her body and
believes is the most important event of her life.
It
is, of course, what happens to all of us perhaps who discover or imagine what
our first loves truly represent. High school romances, at least back in my
days, often ended in marriages that just couldn’t survive the realities of life
outside of teenage notions of romance.
Fortunately, the commonsense world of Haugerud’s
Norway, Johanne herself finally realizes that any possible relationship with
her would-be lover is impossible.
After her own mother contacts the teacher,
sending her the manuscript, and the two talk, Johanna as I mention above
refusing to even admit there was possible anything felt between them, and assuring
the mother most emphatically that nothing sexual ever happened, the books if
published, and for Johanne serves as almost a release from her own imaginative
love. The book receives one very positive review and sales are decent, if not
overwhelming.
If the young girl cannot imagine a romance
as meaningful and powerful as the one she imagined, and is now dating a boy who
she finds sort of charming sleeps he often sleeps nude as up, revealing his
openness to his girl-friend, she suddenly runs into Frøydis, for who Joanne
looks older and for Johanne this time appears much closer to her own than she
previously imagined her, and takes up her offer to share a coffee date. It is
clear that this might be the start of something real, leading Johanne to a more
fulfilling lesbian relationship than the one she dreamt of.
I liked this film immensely, and once
again Haugerud’s characters all continue to exist in a sane continuum without
intense argumentation and rise of hateful emotions. He presents a society that
reasons together, that argues, considers, and moves forward with hope. Is it
any wonder that the Scandinavians are, for the most part, a happy folk? Like
Bergman’s characters, these people suffer, but they don’t grow violent or
hateful, but rather attempt to simply comprehend of even laugh away their
sexual angst. Sex is not treated with hysteria, but with a deep understanding
that we all behave in mysterious ways.
Los
Angeles, June 10, 2026
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2026).
