THE LAST MOVIE OF 2012: OSLO, AUGUST 31st

Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st, is a bracing, sustained feat of empathy. A young recovering drug addict named Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) once again finds himself on the streets of the city where he grew up, and where his life slowly derailed, after being released from the recovery center he's about to graduate from for a job interview. The faint, encouraging glow of warmth from each encounter with old acquaintances, which he hopes will help introduce a new beginning, is soon replaced with a chilling sting when those embers fail, one by one, to fully ignite. From the beginning Trier deftly defines the protagonist against his environment-- nature provides no solace, and nor, finally, does the buzz of life in Oslo, filled as it is with people whose lives seem just starting, unencumbered by weight, by ghosts. Every frame Anders shares with friends and passers-by begins to feel more like a haunting, a constant reminder of connections long ago short-circuited and, of course, the ever-present option of the one spark that might take him to where he really wants to go. Oslo, August 31st is a movie that is profoundly sad but never suffocating or sensational-- it's a portrayal of an addict whose primary physical need is expressed almost exclusively in humanistic, spiritual terms and imagery, a need eloquently written on Anders' long, angular face, in his tired eyes, on the streets which course with the promise, and the denial, of sweet release.

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