Grill

Jade Hærem Aksnes’ Grill was inspired by an outrageous story in the newspaper.

A person in Norway was rejected for support with their utility bills and advised by the social services to avail themselves of a barbeque grill on a freecycle website to avoid needing to use electricity to cook. Aksnes takes this premise as the catalyst for her pointed critique by following the efforts of a person living on the breadline to follow that unsympathetic recommendation. The result is a film that expertly conveys the anxiety of navigating the modern world when there is no money in your bank account and takes that situation to drastic extremes.

The crux of the film rests with its lead actress, Birgitte Larsen, who plays Tara. With no money at all available to her, even travelling to collect a free grill is an ordeal – she cannot pay for the bus, so needs to sneak on through the rear doors. Larsen is brilliant at translating the unease that Tara feels throughout the whole film, flitting eyes communicating apprehension and the obvious roiling of a brain desperately trying to determine a way out of her current predicament. This becomes all the more excruciating when she arrives to collect the grill only to find that it is not, after all, free and that the current owner has ordered her a taxi in which she can transport it home. Even after she convinces the taxi driver to flee the scene while the man’s back is turned, she must still wrestle with the fact that she can’t afford the fare.

For anyone who has ever crossed their fingers hoping that a card payment will not be declined, or that a cashpoint will submit to their meagre withdrawal request, the dramatic tension of this film will feel painfully familiar. Stephen St. Peter’s cinematography often muddies the frame with body parts, creating a substantial sense of claustrophobia in the image, emphasising the sense of a cage closing in around Tara. A pirouette of plot twists in the final moments doesn’t do anything to negate the helplessness of the situation, if anything making more palpable the grotesqueness of how the richest countries treat their poorest citizens.

Director, screenplay: Jade Hærem Aksnes
Cast: Birgitte Larsen, Issaka Sawadogo, Frode Winther
Producer: Siv Aksnes, Niels Peter Hærem
Cinematography: Stephen St. Peter
Production design: Fredrik Sivertsen
Sound: Gisle Tveito, Tom Erik Lie
Production companies: Zarepta Film Production (Norway)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival
In Norwegian
18 minutes