Film discussion: The Wave

But even if you head to the MallPlexx 3000, you’re not likely to find a movie that will give you the heart-in-your-throat thrills that you’ll find in The Wave, a Norwegian disaster film that we’ll be discussing on Tuesday night.

The setup is absurdly simple, although I may not have all the details right, not having seen the film. There’s a side of a mountain just up the fjord from a quaint tourist village, and the precarious peak is threatening to fall down and produce a massive tsunami. The geologist who’s been monitoring the mountain has decided to get his family out of town. Quickly.

So, can you guess what the mountain does? Yes, that’s right. End of village, and the start of some damn tough sledding for its few surviving inhabitants.

Critics have hailed The Wave for its minimal reliance on computer-generated images for its special effects. But low-tech doesn’t mean low-stress. Let’s just say that interviews with the film’s stars have centered on the incredible amount of swimming and diving that the shoot involved.

I’m quite partial to a good disaster film myself. And if Norwegian murder mysteries are anything to go by, they have a taste for subjecting people to extremes that should make for some real white-knuckle action. (And after May’s selection of slightly depressive dramas, The Wave will be a great palate cleanser for the summer feast to come.)

I hope to see you there, especially as this will be the only film discussion in May. So let’s get scared together and compare notes! (It’s at 7:00 in The Historic Theater.)