a reprise on 'reprise'

finally saw reprise today. verdict: incredible. it's up there with diving bell on my list of most personally satisfying favorite films. i'll see it again. who with?

What I wanted to do with REPRISE wasx depict a very specific cultural environment, with characters that I know intimately. I wanted to make a film about friendships and aspirations that fail. I wanted to make a film that was as full of contrasts in its form as the lives of the characters in it. I wanted to use cinematic language that reflected the narrative culture in some ways typical of a gang of 23 year old men, full of anecdotes and digressions, searching and open, but with pain and disappointment lying just below the surface.

I wanted to show a group of young men, exposed and vulnerable, with all their dreams, their doubts and illusions, world champions and children at one and the same time. Without smoothing any of the rough edges I wanted to show their complex and often fearful relationships with the opposite sex. I wanted to "shoot inwards" and examine that particular type of contempt (often self-contempt) which is often--paradoxically enough--part of the glue that holds a gang of friends together.

What is intended to be different about REPRISE is the use of contrasts and contradictions in the material, the mixture of humor and seriousness. Everyday, lightweight situations are mixed with darker and more poetic scenes. Passages of tenderness alternate with frantic montages from the gang's past (or possibly their future?). REPRISE should seem as rich in ideas and enthusiasm as young men of that age are.

REPRISE is intended to be both light hearted and sad, amusing and melancholic. That's why its frame of reference extends from Punk rock to French poetry.

--Joachim Trier