Pål Sletaune	...	(Director)
Pål Sletaune	...	(Writer)
Kristoffer Joner	...	John
Cecilie A. Mosli	...	Anne
Julia Schacht	...	Kim
Anna Bache-Wiig	...	Ingrid
Michael Nyqvist	...	Åke
Øystein Martinsen	...	Peter
Odd Arno Midtsjø	...	Gammel Mand
Magne Kipperrud	...	Kollega
Simon Boswell	...	Composer
John Andreas Andersen	...	Cinematographer
Darek Hodor	...	Editor

Comments: I decided to re-watch this to remind my self what good violence and horror are like. This is a genre piece about a guy who befriends two girls who may or may not live next door to his apartment, and then things get really bent. Maybe the girls are evil to the core, maybe they are a mirror. It's too bad the ending lets the air out of its tires because everything we get dragged through leading up to it deserves more. Kristoffer Joner who plays the seeming innocent is perfect. His face, his body language, they are confused yet curious dread personified. The girls are a sleazy, sexy, creepy crawly mash-up teetering between repulsive and titillating.

It's a well put together and acted film with greasy, seductive characters, a thoughtfully subtle soundtrack, and an eerie eerie set. The girls' apartment, which grows throughout the film mirroring the expanding recesses of their mindfuck, is a character of its own.

If you've heard of this film you've heard about the sex scene (I guess you'd call it a sex scene) where a man and woman bloody one another by sprinkling their lustful moves with punches to the face. If you haven't, now you have. Brrrrr.

Highly recommended -----------------------

This is right up there with Michael Haneke's Funny Games in the twisted creepy department. There's a surreal normalcy that pervades the proceedings even when they get completely bent. Something about the story though, after it is fully revealed, might take a little bit of air out of your tires. You've seen it before and you'll see it again, but so what?

This film is anything but predictable as you're being dragged through it. I'll wager an episode of Dallas that it won't be until after the final denouement that you'll feel like you knew where things had the possibility of going. If the ending does disappoint, it's because the entirety of everything that preceded it has you expecting more. Good films do that. Good films are like roller coasters: you can know where they start and where they end, and many of them are alike, but that doesn't prevent you from jumping on and enjoying a ride. Naboer is a well put together film with greasy, seductive characters, a thoughtfully subtle soundtrack, and an eerie set, the girls' apartment, that grows throughout the film mirroring the expanding recesses of their mind fuck.

By now, if you've heard of this film you've heard about the sex scene (I guess you'd call it a sex scene) where a man and woman bloody one another by sprinkling their lustful moves with punches to the face. If you haven't, now you have.

Part of the intrigue of watching foreign films comes from the fact that they usually employ foreign actors. Duh. The visual cues to their personality makeup are different. This guy, Kristoffer Joner, who plays the seeming innocent, his face, his body language, they're confused yet curious dread personified. The girls, they're some kind of sleazy, sexy, creepy crawly mash-up teetering between repulsive and titillating. This might be a genre piece with a story arc you've seen before but I'll bet you've never seen it played like these players play it.

★★★★★

Summary: A psychological thriller, where the main character, John (Kristoffer Joner), has recently been dumped by his girlfriend, Ingrid. He is seduced by his beautiful neighbors, Anne and Kim, and is taken to a mystical and frightful world where he isn't able to tell reality from fantasy.