31/49

Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of crossing the line with his best friend from elementary school. Norway’s official submission for the “Best International Feature Film” category of the 97th Academy Awards in 2025.. Norwegian films generally have a low international standard, but here we have a film that also manages to reach an exceptionally low Norwegian standard. It’s a truly rare achievement. The film looks mostly like it was made by first-year film school students. These students set out to create an experimental film unlike anything seen before, and they succeeded. However, they forgot a few things. Among other things, they forgot that even bad films usually have some tricks in the script to keep the audience engaged until the end – some cliffhangers or other cinematic techniques. This film has none of that. It’s just exceptionally bad. Plus, it’s arguably the cheapest movie ever made. The budget is limited to the actors, the camera, the lighting and sound crew, and in no scene is anyone technically challenged. If you’re strong enough to hold a camera and a microphone, you could make this movie. The movie takes place entirely in the hallways and rooms of a school. They didn’t even bother with sets. This is a school, a county-run school, and they probably borrowed it for free. The actors don’t do a bad job. But it’s hard for actors to be downright bad – it takes an exceptionally bad director to make actors look bad. So, strictly speaking, it’s not the actors’ fault that the movie is terrible. However, since they agreed to take on the roles, it will be part of their filmography to have appeared in the movie Armand. It’s not possible to give the film a 0, but if it were, it would deserve a 0 simply because it doesn’t deserve a 1. Incidentally, this is Norway’s contribution to this year’s Oscars. The Norwegian Oscar committee decided that this is the best film made in Norway this year. How they came to this conclusion is a mystery, considering that there have been quite a few bad Norwegian films made this year, but Armand is the worst. There are many bad Norwegian films to choose from that are much better than this one. For those who don’t know, Norway has no internationally important actors. By comparison, Sweden and Denmark even have dozens. This film, with its trip to the US and Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, proves to the entire film industry that Norway, for many practical purposes, is a nation without a functioning film environment.