The Hunger
2018 · 10m · Norway
Directed by Kenneth Karlstad
Genres: coming-of-age, crime, drama
Tones: dark, provocative, tense
Jorgen, a sixteen-year-old middle-class kid starved for recognition, seeks out a vicious criminal to prove his nerve. Suburban gothic in the key of weaponized masculinity.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A short that refuses to wag its finger at its own protagonist — that's the move. Karlstad lets the sensory overload do what a hundred lines of dialogue would only ruin.
Refusing to moralize the protagonist's slide and letting score and sound design do the indictment is the formally adult choice for suburban-gothic masculinity. Joachim Trier filtered through Noé is a serious lineage.
Suburban-gothic Norwegian teen masculinity drama using pulsating EDM and visceral sound design as moral indictment rather than dialogue is a strong formal stance. The refusal-to-moralize approach reads as confidence.
Reviews
A singular, uncompromising vision of darkness that refrains from moralizing.