ANALYSIS/OPINION
Disaster films are a staple of American cinema, so it takes some risk to attempt to transport the genre to a foreign culture, but that’s precisely what the makers of the new film “The Wave,” from Norway, have bet on.
Directed by Roar Uthaug from a script by Kare Raake and Harald Roselow-Eng, “The Wave” is set up more or less as a typical disaster flick, with a quaint, sleepy, clueless Scandinavian community about to be beset by biblical chaos. Kristoffer Joner is Kristian, a seismologist about to leave his government-funded gig for a higher-paying job with the oil industry. However, Kristian realizes that something is terribly, terribly wrong given instrumentation readings, realizing that an earthquake of biblical proportions will produce a tsunami that will wipe out his lakeside community.
The setup for “The Wave” is well done, building suspense and tension as Kristian attempts to warn the requisite bureaucrats and civic leaders that “it” is coming. Unfortunately, after the (spoiler alert) big event strikes, the film becomes more or less standard disaster cliches, with Kristian hoping against hope to rescue his wife and children.
There’s not precisely much new here, but what the film does it does well, and proves once again that American exported genre continues to be refracted and reflected by filmmakers around the world and resold around the world just as the British Invasion once repackaged the blues for American teens.
”The Wave” opens Friday at the District’s Landmark E Street Cinema.
Disaster films are a staple of American cinema, so it takes some risk to attempt to transport the genre to a foreign culture, but that’s precisely what the makers of the new film “The Wave,” from Norway, have bet on.
Directed by Roar Uthaug from a script by Kare Raake and Harald Roselow-Eng, “The Wave” is set up more or less as a typical disaster flick, with a quaint, sleepy, clueless Scandinavian community about to be beset by biblical chaos. Kristoffer Joner is Kristian, a seismologist about to leave his government-funded gig for a higher-paying job with the oil industry. However, Kristian realizes that something is terribly, terribly wrong given instrumentation readings, realizing that an earthquake of biblical proportions will produce a tsunami that will wipe out his lakeside community.
The setup for “The Wave” is well done, building suspense and tension as Kristian attempts to warn the requisite bureaucrats and civic leaders that “it” is coming. Unfortunately, after the (spoiler alert) big event strikes, the film becomes more or less standard disaster cliches, with Kristian hoping against hope to rescue his wife and children.
There’s not precisely much new here, but what the film does it does well, and proves once again that American exported genre continues to be refracted and reflected by filmmakers around the world and resold around the world just as the British Invasion once repackaged the blues for American teens.
“The Wave” opens Friday at the District’s Landmark E Street Cinema.
• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
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