Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st starts with a sequence that doesn't advance the plot — and yet shifts how you watch the entire film — and ends with a sequence with almost no dialogue but a lot happens.
They're sequences I've returned to again and again over 14 years to figure out how they work — and keep discovering something new that shifts how I see the film.
In this episode, Joachim Trier talks about the problem the opening was trying to solve, Eskil Vogt talks about the challenges of writing the ending, and I talk about the pleasures of digging into them.
This month, I'll be hosting in-depth workshops on the opening and the ending of Oslo, August 31st as part of The Deep Focus.
