31 Mar 2007
"Wonderously bizarre" The Guardian
In the early 1950s Sweden's Home Research Institute is conducting studies into domestic habits. Armed with clipboards, a Swedish delegation arrives in a Norwegian rural district, with the aim of observing the domestic rituals of single men. One hapless observer, Nilsson, is assigned a particularly reluctant farmer who at first won't even let him inside the house. Soon, though, Nilsson takes up his vantage point on a wooden platform perched ludicrously in the corner of the kitchen - only to find that the farmer is watching him through a hole in the kitchen ceiling. Slowly, however, relations begin to thaw...
Dir Bent Hamer, Sweden 2003, 90 mins