Gymnaslærer Pedersen

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.

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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.