Urologist Marianne is not interested in a relationship, yet her friend is trying to set her up with a divorced architect. On her way home from a date, Marianne meets Tor, a nurse who tells her about the thrill of casual relationships, and Marianne wonders if a freer approach to sex and love might work for her. Marianne and Tor change each other’s perceptions and lead each other into uncharted waters.
The Sex Dreams Love trilogy by Dag Johan Haugerud, who visited the Midnight Sun Film Festival last year, explores the complexity and multiple perspectives of sexuality: analytical feminist, shameful, pragmatic, uncomplicated, pleasurable and so on. Above all, Love highlights the complex and changing nature of love itself. One of the characters, a geologist, describes how nothing is permanent: even rocks and tectonic plates are in motion. But the peculiarity of the human mind is to assume that love remains unchanging.
Love premiered at the Venice Film Festival and shows Oslo at its best. The mild late summer and the leisurely pace create an experience like a warm bath that you want to dive into again and again. Haugerud works on the script and dialogue with the actors, resulting in an incredibly naturalistic result that even Eric Rohmer could learn from.
Otto Kylmälä