Dreams
2024 · Directed by Dag Johan Haugerud
Original language: Norwegian
- romance
- drama
The story
Johanne falls in love with her teacher and records her fantasies and feelings in writing. Together with her mother and grandmother, they debate the literary potential and whether to publish it.
What it’s like
Clean daylight and muted interiors of an Oslo school, apartments and kitchens, shot in static, patient frames where conversations unfold at their own pace. The mood is quiet and intellectual, a cool, contemplative calm with a faint undertow of longing and unease. Much of the film lives in talk: women reading, debating and weighing words around a table, so the rhythm is unhurried and dialogue-led, with silences left to sit. Its emotional register is tender and self-scrutinising, more about desire, shame and the act of putting feelings into language than about external drama. The intensity is low: there is no graphic violence or gore, and the sexual content stays off-screen, though the subject of a teenager's infatuation with an adult teacher runs through it and is handled with seriousness and unease. It suits a slow, reflective evening or a thoughtful watch with someone to talk afterward. It is for viewers who enjoy character-driven, conversational cinema about art, honesty and the messy inner lives of young women, and who are comfortable sitting with uncomfortable feelings rather than being soothed by them.
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