45/41
Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of crossing boundaries against his best friend in elementary school.. Norway’s official submission for the “Best International Feature Film” category at the 97th Academy Awards in 2025.. Norwegian films are generally of a low international standard, but here we have a film that also manages to reach an exceptionally low Norwegian standard. This is a rare achievement indeed.The film looks like it was mostly made by first-year film school students. These students set out to create an experimental film unlike anything seen before, and they succeeded. However, they forgot a few things. Among other things, they forgot that even bad films usually have some tricks in the script to keep the viewers engaged until the end, some plot twists or other cinematic techniques. This film has none of that. It is simply exceptionally bad.Furthermore, it is undoubtedly the cheapest film ever made. The expenses are limited to the actors, the camera, the lighting and sound crew, and in no scene is anyone technically challenged. If you are strong enough to hold a camera and a microphone, you could make this movie. The movie takes place entirely in the hallways and rooms of a school. They didn’t even bother with sets. This is a school, a county-run school, and they most likely borrowed it for free. The actors don’t do a directly bad job. But it’s hard for actors to act completely bad – it takes an exceptionally bad director to make actors look bad. So, strictly speaking, it’s not the actors’ fault that the movie is terrible. However, since they agreed to play the roles, it will be part of their film resume that they appeared in the movie Armand. It’s not possible to give the movie a 0, but if it were, it would deserve a 0 simply because it doesn’t deserve a 1. Incidentally, this is Norway’s contribution to this year’s Oscars. The Norwegian Oscar committee has decided that this is the best film made in Norway this year. How they came to this conclusion is a mystery, considering there have been quite a few bad Norwegian films made this year, but Armand is the worst. There are plenty of bad Norwegian films to choose from that are far better than this one. For those who don’t know, Norway has no major international actors. In comparison, Sweden and Denmark have several dozen. This film, with its trip to the US and nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, proves to the entire film industry that Norway, for most practical purposes, is a nation without a functioning film environment.
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