(2008; DeUsynlige, Norwegian) Fractured and mysterious from the outset, director Erik Poppe's drama of revenge and atonement, from a screenplay by Harald Rosenløw-Eeg, accelerates a pair of powerful narratives, propelling them on a collision course through a cinematic cyclotron.

Released on parole from Ila Prison in Oslo, Norway, for good behavior after serving two-thirds of his sentence, Thomas Jan Hansen (Pål Sverve Valheim Hagen), who has mastered playing the organ during religious services, goes to Stavanger for a job (the corrections chaplain having provided him with a strong reference without mentioning his incarceration) as a church organist. Before he departs, a bully (who appears in flashbacks with Thomas, both as younger boys, with a child in a stroller beside a river) and others in the prison kitchen get into a brawl with Thomas, badly injuring his hand.

Initially upon Jan's arrival (using his middle name), the Lutheran priest, Anna Moi (Ellen Dorrit Petersen), and her menighetforvalter (curator) rescind the offer of employment, thinking the applicant too young and inexperienced, until they hear him play. In their first encounter together, Anna's little boy Jens (Fredrik Grøndahl), blond-haired like his mother, says to Jan: "You're not really an organ player." A group of teenagers on a field trip is awestruck when Jan plays "Bridge Over Troubled Water" for them while their teacher is moved much differently.

A romantic relationship evolves between Anna, a single mother, and Jan, a nonbeliever; in her speaking to him of the miracle of Jesus's walking on water, he acknowledges how doubters unlike the faithful of this parable sink beneath the waves. To her assertion that "God has a purpose for everything that happens," Jan's reply is that the faithful bring in God when all other explanations fail: "Is evil an act of God?" She, who believes in a God "yet to be proven," says that forgiveness isn't as important as atonement for sins.

The menighetforvalter informs Jan that a woman has inquired about him. After denying any guilt for the death of her four-year-old boy Isak to the curator and later to the woman's husband (demanding admission of his having committed murder) - it was an accident, not his fault, therefore he has nothing for which to apologize - Jan takes communion as the priest pronounces "to pay for our sins."

Trusted with Jens, Jan rides his bicycle to the daycare center to pick the boy up to bring him home, but when Jens protests that he's forgotten his sculpture inside the building, Jan goes inside to retrieve it, only to find Jens missing when he comes back outside. Juxtaposed with his search for Jens, the story returns years earlier to Agnes (Trine Dyrholm) frantically looking for her Isak after she'd left him in a stroller outside a shop into which she'd gone to wipe spilled chocolate from her white sweater.

The body never found ("no grave to visit"), the two boys accused of the crime blamed each other in court without either's admitting to killing the child, Agnes remains haunted by her terrible loss. In the present, opposite and approaching the trajectory of Jan's storyline, Agnes, a high-school teacher, is surprised by her husband Jon's unexpected announcement of his having accepted employment in Denmark, requiring a move with their two adopted Asian girls.

Having recognized Jan (though his name had been Thomas previously) during the field trip with her students to the church, Agnes accosts the curator, demanding to know why a murderer is being allowed to perform within hallowed walls, to which the menighetforvalter responds: "Anybody who comes here will get a second chance."

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .