Nord (2009) – A poor remake
I often wonder how some people goes to a screening, sees a movie they like, and thinks: Wow this is a fantastic movie, let’s make a horrible remake of it. The Norwegian movie ‘Nord‘ is yet another product of these kinds of people.
If you’ve ever seen David Lynch’s ‘The Straight Story‘, you’ve seen what ‘Nord’ could’ve been if it was an original idea and twice as good.
A soon-to-become emo
Instead of a sweet and congenial retired man; ‘Nord’ brings you a fat pathetic manically depressed guy, working hanging around at the local skiing centre watching Discovery Channel. He learns that he has a five-year-old daughter way up North. Being afraid of both airplanes, buss, cars, horses, cabs, segways, trains, wheelchairs, bogeymen and everything else that comes along with being manically depressed (wait? what?!); he decides to take his snow-scooter for a ride to visit his unseen daughter. (Not to be confused with the electric lawnmower-car in ‘The Straight Story’). On his way he meets a homophobic homo, a lonely soon-to-become emo girl and a suicidal native Norwegian. And that’s about it.
I’m not going to give away the ending. But if you’ve seen The Straight Story. Well. At least try acting surprised.
Unstable solar orbit direction
I think what this movie lacks do be a descent remake is a soul. Everything seems very cold and distinguished. This might be the directors vision. But if you’re gonna do a remake of a movie with a real soul. You should add some soul. Or at least try…
Another thing that really bothered me was that the solar orbit changed direction all the time. If the action was set in a parallel dimension it could’ve been understandable. But in my world: when traveling north the sunset is usually at your right hand side.
If you’ve seen ‘The Straight Story’ and thought it was a little too good for your taste, this might just be the movie for you.
Tags: emo, Lynch, remake, snowscooter, unstable solar orbit direction