Dreams

CinemaSerf

Diarist "Johanne" (Ella Øverbye) is coming to the end of her school life when she takes quite a shine to her French teacher "Johanna" (Selome Emnetu). It's clear that there is an element of reciprocity here and the younger girl, in the throes of her first real love, writes down some of their experiences together in a book that she shows to her writer grandmother (Anne Marit Jacobsen). She is somewhat unnerved by the detail of the story but she is also impressed by the writing style and the candour and so considers that the best thing to do is to pass it on to her daughter "Karin" (Ane Dahl Torp) who is equally concerned that there might be elements of "grooming" going on here, but who is also aware that what she is reading displays a maturity that belies the years of a seventeen-year-old, and that suggests that there might be something more profound to the relationship - if she can distinguish between what is fact, and what might just be youthful exuberance spilling from her imagination onto her page. I think my plausibility issues with this stemmed from the fact that I couldn't really get from my head just how I would have reacted if this were to have a boy and a male teacher. What might our judgements and conclusions have lept to and would his grandmother or mother have been anywhere near so indulgent when reading of such an ambiguous but potentially criminal relationship? It was that potential inconsistency that dogged me somewhat throughout this gently paced look at the effects of adolecense and though I felt Øverbye was perfectly proficient here, I wasn't bowled over by any of the other performances nor the writing and the film had a certain complacency to it that seemed to assume that the watcher would be sympathetic enough - or at least open-minded enough - to play along with a plot that shrouds something really quite disturbing in a mist of youthful romance and/or a desire to be professionally "supportive". Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, or maybe not enough - but it treads an uncomfortably fine line and for me it lacked any real sense of passion or even credibility.