7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A Swedish family travels to the French Alps to enjoy a few days of skiing. During a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche turns everything upside down. The anticipated disaster fails to occur, and yet the family's world has been shaken to its core.
Starring: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Vincent Wettergren, Clara Wettergren, Kristofer HivjuForeign | 100% |
Drama | 86% |
Dark humor | 17% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Swedish: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo verified
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Force majeure literally means "superior force", and the term most commonly occurs in a standard contract clause that excuses either party from its obligations in the event of war, strikes, riots or a so-called act of God such as a hurricane, earthquake or flood. In writer/director Ruben Östlund's 2014 film, which was Sweden's submission for the 2014 Oscars (but did not make the finalists), force majeure applies, at its most literal, to the avalanche that sweeps down on a family ski resort in the French Alps, terrifying onlookers but ultimately doing no harm. At a deeper level, however, the title's "superior force" refers to the primal instincts of survival that the impending disaster awakens in some of the hotel guests, with consequences that play out long after the tidal wave of snow has subsided. Östlund works in a deliberate, slow-burn style that favors long takes, which he often holds to the point of discomfort. In his film review of Force Majeure, my colleague Brian Orndorf noted the influence of Stanley Kubrick, and Östlund's scrutiny of individuals under pressure also recalls Michael Haneke, another filmmaker who borrows from Kubrick. But Östlund doesn't share Haneke's didactic streak, which sometimes conveys the sense that a director is preaching to the viewer about humanity's corruption. Östlund's temperament is more humane, and he provides Force Majeure with a comic counterpoint in which he uses the ski resort's elaborate machinery for maintaining the slopes as a kind of slapstick intermission to relieve the tension between bouts of emotional turbulence. Ironically, that very machinery is what caused the avalanche that triggered the toxic emotional spiral.
Östlund is one of Sweden's leading proponents of digital cinema and digital effects. He and his cinematographer, Fredrik Wenzel (The Quiet Roar), shot numerous tests before settling on the Arri Alexa with anamorphic lenses for capturing the scenic splendor of the Les Arcs ski resort, where most of Force Majeure was shot. Post-production, including the compositing of the avalanche (shot in British Colombia), was completed on a digital intermediate, from which Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably derived. The Blu-ray image is superb, with breathtaking long shots of the mountainous surroundings, the main resort, the various ski lifts and cable cars that skiers use to reach the peaks, and the plethora of both stationary and mobile devices used to maintain the surroundings. The scenes of skiers navigating the slopes have beautiful whites to show the snow, and the scenes of work crews refreshing and smoothing the trails at night have deep blacks for the background. The hotel rooms and other facilities are displayed with fine detail that gives the film a crucial realistic texture, making the people seem normal and believable. Because it is winter in the Alps, the color palette favors cool blues and grays, especially outside, but many of the hotel interiors have warmer hues from the wood decor. Magnolia has placed Force Majeure on a BD-50 and, given the relatively slight extras, has used most of the available space to deliver an average bitrate of 36.00 Mbps (which is the exact reading delivered by BDInfo). I occasionally hear from Blu-ray.com forum members claiming that average bitrates this high do not make a visible difference with today's advanced codecs, but whenever I encounter a disc that allocates space this generously to the feature, the video quality is noticeably superior (assuming the source was good to begin with).
Force Majeure has a precisely edited 5.1 soundtrack, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, in which the sounds of the ski resort's ceaseless manipulation of its snowy environment routinely interrupt the normal hum of daily life. Most noticeable are the small periodic explosions that trigger the controlled avalanches designed to prevent a much larger, uncontrolled event. The soundtrack reproduces these effects with authority but without overemphasizing them. For the avalanche at the heart of the story, a different sonic approach applies; it begins softly, then builds slowly in volume as the phenomenon approaches. Ultimately, both the sound and the avalanche disintegrate without ever "paying off" in the massive impact that everyone thinks is coming. Sounds of wind, rushing air and ski lift machinery are deployed artfully throughout the surround array, as are small ambient noises from the resort's interior. The dialogue, which is occasionally in English but mostly in Swedish (with English subtitles), appears to be clear throughout. The original score is a mixture of original music by Ola Flřttum and an oft-repeated selection from Vivaldi's "Summer" concerto (an ironic touch).
Force Majeure is unconventional in its approach and cerebral in its subject matter, but it gets inside your head and stays there, prompting uncomfortable questions that have occurred to all of us in one form or another. You cannot watch Tomas and Ebba trying to sort out their feelings without asking yourself, "What would I have done?", and you aren't answering honestly if you don't admit that you're not sure. That's the insoluble mystery at the heart of Östlund's film. One never knows until the moment arrives, and most of us will never know for sure, because it never does. Highly recommended.
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