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The Bothersome Man
DVD/APPROX. 90 MINS/2006/ICELAND-NORWAY MA15+
DVD/APPROX. 90 MINS/2006/ICELAND-NORWAY MA15+
7
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Dystopian fiction? I like it. I’m a big fan of 1984, We, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, all of William Gibson’s novels and the like – film-wise I’m
down with Metropolis, Bladerunner, Brazil and all those wonderful Italo post-apocalyptic flicks by the likes of Enzo Castellari and Bruno Mattei. So
I approached The Bothersome Man with a positive eye, basically thinking I’d be getting a quiet and most likely intellectual Scandinavian view on
the whole “coping with a dehumanising modern life” kind of vibe (based on what I’d read about it before I’d seen it) – no bad thing in my book.
And God knows I wanted to like it. Did I? Read on and find out.
Andreas doesn’t fit in. Nope, not at all. The opening shot of the film is Andreas in a subway station watching a couple robotically snogging and
looking like they’re trying top remove each others faces with their jaws. Andreas looks on – not with disgust, lust or contempt, but more with a
blankness, like he has no idea what they are doing.
We then flash back (or forward) to Andreas finding himself on a bus in the middle of a wasteland, being dropped off and getting a lift from a total
stranger to his apartment (which he doesn’t recognise) and being told about his new accounting job (which he doesn’t know about). Calling
something Lynch-ian is a tool lazy reviewers often use for describing films that are a little mysterious or out of the ordinary, but to be honest, it
does kind of fit here, as reviewing shorthand, even if it’s a shorthand I don’t like using myself.
Andreas goes for a little bit of a wander around the city one day to find the body of a fella impaled on an iron fence, having obviously hurled himself
out of a window from his place of employment. The body is being removed by the “Caretakers”, a sinister bunch of grey-suited public servants who
ensure the smooth running of the city Andreas works in. It also provides the gore-hungry audience with a totally unexpected bit of blood and guts.
Nobody else seems to give all that much of a shit, meaning two things – one: we are obviously meant to feel Andreas’ emotional response (he
represents us in this cold modern world), and two: modern society is concerned with appearances only and does not give a single shit about its
constituent parts. The incident passes without a blip on the radar of the collective unconscious of the rest of society. They don’t even seem to see
the tragedy.
Actually, it’s just kind of struck me when talking about the Caretakers as “grey-suited” that everything in the city is grey – it’s bland, dehumanising
and sterile. The director is obviously making a statement about modern existence and the banal nature of the things we as a community hold dear.
The colour palette used in the city makes everything, including the population, look like wallpaper in a bad public service job.
Andreas tries at an early point of the film to make sense of things, to get to the bottom of it all, but much like you or I, simply can’t – we don’t have
the wherewithal to do so – we are small cogs in a big machine. He is totally outside, off the radar, and yet a part of the machine while not
recognising he is, however contradictory that sounds.
When Andreas tries to fit in, it’s almost as awful as when he gets the occasional peek into the abyss that the Caretakers maintain. Say for
example, when he has lunch with and then attends a dinner party with his co-workers – the entire conversation is made up of non-sequitur
dialogue – there’s loads of talk, but nobody actually says anything. Is this our future? I’d hope not, but at the same time, have a look around you,
and just remember that scene from Fight Club where Edward Norton’s un-named narrator is delving into the wonders of the Ikea catalogue. Like
Tyler Durden says in that movie, “The things you own start to own you.” And the same idea is raised here – wanting the perfect relationship, the
perfect house, the perfect accoutrements, the perfect life…
Look, I think you’ve got the picture, and I don’t want to be a plot spoiler in terms of what Andreas gets up to. It’s a bleak, cold, inescapable and
ultimately inhumane existence we’re looking forward to unless we retain our humanity and our intrinsic individuality, as Andreas tries to do; but at
the back of our minds we’re all thinking Yossarian from Catch 22, Winston Smith from 1984, and John the savage from Brave New World. Misfits
who can’t win because of the grinding evil of a contemporary existence, but keep, as long as possible, fighting the good fight. I was left a little
reminded of Orson Welles’ film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial towards the end – maybe this will be apparent to you, too…
So then, The Bothersome Man: black humour – loads of it, without any real laugh out loud moments. Social comment – again, in abundance, in
some cases a little on the heavy handed side. Still, an engaging film, if not an essential one.
Can I also maybe remind people at this point that a trailer for the movie that you just watched the entirety of does not constitute a “Special
Feature”? Nor does the random grab-bag, lucky-dip assortment of trailers shoehorned on the back of this feature: The Method, C.R.A.Z.Y., Clean
and Lower City – none of which I think I’ll be running out to see anytime soon, and none of which might obviously interest the target audience of
The Bothersome Man. This is unusual, as Madman usually select their trailers with a lot more care, given that I think they are a company with a
very strong understanding of the digital format..
down with Metropolis, Bladerunner, Brazil and all those wonderful Italo post-apocalyptic flicks by the likes of Enzo Castellari and Bruno Mattei. So
I approached The Bothersome Man with a positive eye, basically thinking I’d be getting a quiet and most likely intellectual Scandinavian view on
the whole “coping with a dehumanising modern life” kind of vibe (based on what I’d read about it before I’d seen it) – no bad thing in my book.
And God knows I wanted to like it. Did I? Read on and find out.
Andreas doesn’t fit in. Nope, not at all. The opening shot of the film is Andreas in a subway station watching a couple robotically snogging and
looking like they’re trying top remove each others faces with their jaws. Andreas looks on – not with disgust, lust or contempt, but more with a
blankness, like he has no idea what they are doing.
We then flash back (or forward) to Andreas finding himself on a bus in the middle of a wasteland, being dropped off and getting a lift from a total
stranger to his apartment (which he doesn’t recognise) and being told about his new accounting job (which he doesn’t know about). Calling
something Lynch-ian is a tool lazy reviewers often use for describing films that are a little mysterious or out of the ordinary, but to be honest, it
does kind of fit here, as reviewing shorthand, even if it’s a shorthand I don’t like using myself.
Andreas goes for a little bit of a wander around the city one day to find the body of a fella impaled on an iron fence, having obviously hurled himself
out of a window from his place of employment. The body is being removed by the “Caretakers”, a sinister bunch of grey-suited public servants who
ensure the smooth running of the city Andreas works in. It also provides the gore-hungry audience with a totally unexpected bit of blood and guts.
Nobody else seems to give all that much of a shit, meaning two things – one: we are obviously meant to feel Andreas’ emotional response (he
represents us in this cold modern world), and two: modern society is concerned with appearances only and does not give a single shit about its
constituent parts. The incident passes without a blip on the radar of the collective unconscious of the rest of society. They don’t even seem to see
the tragedy.
Actually, it’s just kind of struck me when talking about the Caretakers as “grey-suited” that everything in the city is grey – it’s bland, dehumanising
and sterile. The director is obviously making a statement about modern existence and the banal nature of the things we as a community hold dear.
The colour palette used in the city makes everything, including the population, look like wallpaper in a bad public service job.
Andreas tries at an early point of the film to make sense of things, to get to the bottom of it all, but much like you or I, simply can’t – we don’t have
the wherewithal to do so – we are small cogs in a big machine. He is totally outside, off the radar, and yet a part of the machine while not
recognising he is, however contradictory that sounds.
When Andreas tries to fit in, it’s almost as awful as when he gets the occasional peek into the abyss that the Caretakers maintain. Say for
example, when he has lunch with and then attends a dinner party with his co-workers – the entire conversation is made up of non-sequitur
dialogue – there’s loads of talk, but nobody actually says anything. Is this our future? I’d hope not, but at the same time, have a look around you,
and just remember that scene from Fight Club where Edward Norton’s un-named narrator is delving into the wonders of the Ikea catalogue. Like
Tyler Durden says in that movie, “The things you own start to own you.” And the same idea is raised here – wanting the perfect relationship, the
perfect house, the perfect accoutrements, the perfect life…
Look, I think you’ve got the picture, and I don’t want to be a plot spoiler in terms of what Andreas gets up to. It’s a bleak, cold, inescapable and
ultimately inhumane existence we’re looking forward to unless we retain our humanity and our intrinsic individuality, as Andreas tries to do; but at
the back of our minds we’re all thinking Yossarian from Catch 22, Winston Smith from 1984, and John the savage from Brave New World. Misfits
who can’t win because of the grinding evil of a contemporary existence, but keep, as long as possible, fighting the good fight. I was left a little
reminded of Orson Welles’ film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial towards the end – maybe this will be apparent to you, too…
So then, The Bothersome Man: black humour – loads of it, without any real laugh out loud moments. Social comment – again, in abundance, in
some cases a little on the heavy handed side. Still, an engaging film, if not an essential one.
Can I also maybe remind people at this point that a trailer for the movie that you just watched the entirety of does not constitute a “Special
Feature”? Nor does the random grab-bag, lucky-dip assortment of trailers shoehorned on the back of this feature: The Method, C.R.A.Z.Y., Clean
and Lower City – none of which I think I’ll be running out to see anytime soon, and none of which might obviously interest the target audience of
The Bothersome Man. This is unusual, as Madman usually select their trailers with a lot more care, given that I think they are a company with a
very strong understanding of the digital format..
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