By Steven Erickson

In his debut feature, director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel mistakes gratuitous strangeness for genuinely uncanny adventure.

Armand, directed by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel. Screening at the AMC Boston Common beginning February 13 and on February 14 at Coolidge Corner Theater.

Renate Reinsve in Armand. Photo: IFC Films

Armand is so enamored of its own seriousness that it comes out the other side and turns laughable. Its director is the grandson of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann, and his film feels like a parody of art cinema made by someone who believes they hate his grandfather’s films without having seen them. The mood is constantly dour. Characters talk as though they’re trying to find ways to communicate through a paralytic narcotic haze. Dialogue trails off before people can actually say much. The characters are only recognizably human with the arrival of an extended bout of laughter when Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve), infuriated by accusations against her son, can barely get any words out because of her frustration.

At its beginning, Armand says something about the way language conceals horror beneath a polite surface. A meeting between a teacher, Sunna (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen) and her bosses contains a flurry of allusions to something that went very wrong: “if this blows over, it blows over” or “what’s the procedure in these circumstances?” This bureaucratic vagueness works against transparency at any level. What “it” might be is not directly stated during this scene, but it’s serious enough to call in Elisabeth, the mother of 6-year-old Armand. (She is a well-known actor.) As she walks down the school’s hallway, her shoes echo menacingly. A panel has gathered to question her about Armand’s behavior. As it turns out, fellow student Jon alleges that Armand sexually assaulted him. Defending her son, Elisabeth doubts that he’s old enough to even know what anal or oral sex are. The situation is complicated by Elisabeth’s close ties to Jon’s family. She married his mother Sarah’s (Ellen Dorrit Petersen)  brother Thomas. Thomas killed himself, and Sarah holds her responsible.

Armand is directed in a manner that hints at a subtext without offering a path towards figuring out what it is. Social commentary comes, vaguely, in the way accusations of sexual abuse are weaponized against a woman who isn’t even the person charged with it. Her status as a celebrity works against her; Norwegian social democracy apparently leads to tall poppy syndrome. The fact that Armand and Jon never appear onscreen suggests that adults use their children to score points against each other. But, compared to Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging, or Loony Porn, in which a Romanian teacher faces down a tribunal for making an amateur sex tape, Armand comes off as divorced from reality. Rather than addressing the topical, Tøndel’s style wraps the film in a claustrophobic space all its own.

That might have worked, if his direction didn’t scream “look what an artist I am.” Tøndel shoots his actors so that parts of their faces and bodies are offscreen, and the lighting is so murky it’s often hard to be sure who’s onscreen. As the film moves along, the school grows darker and darker. Shots of its empty hallways are placed throughout, with indications that they form a maze as malevolent as the one in The Shining. Quiet but ominous music drones away in the background.

Near the end, Elisabeth is grabbed by a group of people in the hallway. It looks like the feelings repressed throughout the film will finally rise to the surface, leading to a murder, an orgy — or both. But the scene doesn’t resolve itself clearly. Once she escapes, Elisabeth encounters a downpour whose symbolism – walking into the storm – is rather on the nose. The film’s twists are unexpected but are neither particularly witty or resonant. The script ends up trapped in its own maze of pretentious portent. Armand’s flaws are especially maddening because, amid all the bad decisions, Tøndel shows genuine flair for directing. He can conjure up lots of atmosphere, but he can’t fill it with anything that feels the slightest bit real. Tøndel mistakes gratuitous strangeness for genuinely uncanny adventure.

Steve Erickson writes about film and music for Gay City News, Slant Magazine, the Nashville Scene, Trouser Press, and other outlets. He also produces electronic music under the tag callinamagician. His latest album, Bells and Whistles, was released in January 2024, and is available to stream here.