Mind of modernism

The subtitle of this film is “Three segments of Norwegian architecture” because it groups together three shorts previously made by the director – Ad Astra, Bauta and Platform – and dedicated respectively to brutalist religious architecture, large public and government buildings in Oslo, and modernist housing models. This variety is in the name of a shared expression sought through the use of cement with an organic vision or through the combination of tidy, perpendicular lines. The movement of the camera, the live sound and the music create a suspenseful atmosphere as we discover the details and narrative sequences of the different sites, taking in natural areas, urban environments and domestic settings. These places appear to be uninhabited, but Paul Tunge and his photographer Egil Håskjold Larsen find a way to prove the existence of man (and beast) and to describe the life that takes place there. The film also reveals the design intentions of the many architects it examines, all of whom appear in the end credits.