Comrade Pedersen (2006)

This is very entertaining and interesting snap shot from a point in time when young people in the north were looking east to find their political identity. It is a story about the difficulties you come across when trying to follow your ideals and the frustration you can feel if the ones close to you do not always share your dream. It's about intellectual power, love and lust, masters and slaves and all the different roles you acquire when you are part of a group of people trying to change the world. This film also describes some of the hardships you face if you dare try to change your social class. Would you throw away all your possessions to join the movement and are you brave enough to face alienation in order to be able to follow your dreams?

The name of the party the main characters are involved in tells its own tale: AKP-ml, the Workers Communist Party - the marxist-leninists.... Actually, this film is about the ordinary peoples involvement in the extreme leftist movement in Norway, and deals with the passion, absurdity and tragedy of this period. The film is much less apologetic than the book, and it manages to portray the characters rather truthfully and not as a parody of the times. Compared to other parts of the world the 70's were more politicized, uncompromising and polarized in Norway, something that the movie reflects as it describes the lives of the party cadres. Some nice footage and good acting makes this film well worth for everybody interested in learning about the politically radical way the societal upheavals of the 60's and the 70's influenced a small country "on top of the world".

This movie is quite good, but not quite as good as it could and should have been. The main problem is that AKP-ML only looks like some small comical sect with less than a dozen members. From what I've heard from people that lived in this period, they were actually quite big and made a huge impact on several parts of society, especially for students. I wish this could have been better shown in the movie.Other than that, there's a lot of good stuff here. While some things are a bit over the top, the story is actually pretty good and the acting is good as well, although seeing Joner in about every Norwegian movie is starting to feel a bit strange. But being the best actor of them all, I guess you can live with that.

A bit hard to review this one. As a reaction to USAs involvement in Vietnam, growing capitalism and a rather naive belief in "Power to the people", the Norwegian party AKP-ML was started in 1972. (Loosely translated it means "the Workers CommunistParty - MarxistLeninism ,WCP-ML) They believed all people should be equal and the path to that goal would be achieved through Armed Forces.--This movie is about high-school teacher Pedersen and his arrival to a small Norwegian industrial town. The movie starts about him telling us that he was here to achieve his goal: A wife, a child and a home.This is of course not enough for him. After getting married and moving into his dream home he is drawn to communism through one of his students. When the student moves away to study at the university, Pedersen loses his lighthouse; very soon to be replaced, and led, by another, even brighter star: Nina Skaatoey. They are almost immediately drawn into a very intense love-affair. After a while he has lost both his wife and Nina. And this is what the movie is about. His intense dream and wishes of getting together again, with the love of his life Nina, makes Pedersen the last standing communist. And he was (in my view) never even a real one.The movie, almost two hours long, is boring at first. The intense love-scenes and how were told, again and again, that Pedersen gets communist propaganda visions, each time he is involved with these people, is way to over-told. It's when things starts to fail, and the naivety of AKP-MLs dreams overshadows the reality (and pure logic) this movie starts to get interesting. The last part, where the whole thing is smoldering apart, is clearly the best. (And what makes my score justified).Nina is falling apart and Ane Dahl Torp is acting this breakdown in such a painful way, its hard to witness. Pedersens loyalty is just as well drawn out by Kristoffer Joner. This is also excellent done.All in all, if you can make it through the first half, this is a movie well worth seeing.