25/21
Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of crossing the line against his best friend from elementary school. Norway’s official submission for the “Best International Feature Film” category of the 97th Academy Awards in 2025. Norwegian films usually have a low international standard, but here we have a film that also manages to reach an exceptionally low Norwegian standard. This is a truly rare achievement. The film seems to have been made for the most part by first-year film students. These students decided 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 tricks in the script to keep the audience interested until the end, cliffhangers or other cinematic techniques. This film has none of that. It is simply exceptionally bad. Plus, it is by far the cheapest film ever made. The expenses are limited to the actors, the camera, the lighting and sound equipment, and in no scene does anyone have any technical problems. 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 to set up the sets. It’s a county school, and they probably borrowed it for free. The actors don’t do a bad job, but it’s hard for actors to do bad jobs: it takes an exceptionally bad director to make actors look bad. So, strictly speaking, it’s not the actors’ fault that the movie is horrible. However, since they agreed to take the roles, it will be part of their cinematic history that they appeared in the film Armand. It is not possible to give the film a score of 0, but if it did, it would deserve a 0 simply because it does not deserve a 1. This is Norway’s contribution to this year’s Oscars. The Norwegian Oscar committee decided that this is the best film made in Norway this year. How they came to this conclusion is a mystery, given that there have been quite a few bad Norwegian films made this year, but Armand is the worst. There are many bad Norwegian films to choose from, much better than this one. For those who don’t know, Norway has no actors of international importance. In comparison, Sweden and Denmark have dozens. This film, with its trip to the United States and its nomination for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, demonstrates to the entire film industry that Norway, in many respects, is a nation without a functioning film environment.