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Everybody Hates Johan ★★★★
(M) 93 minutes
Everybody Hates Johan is a Norwegian comedy of charm and wisdom, although that title is a shocker. It’s not the translation: the original title is Alle Hater Johan, which sounds pretty close.
The setting is a small barren island, far from most other Norwegians. The gross regional product appears to be wind. How the people make a living is a mystery, as we see no fishing boats. The weather has not made everyone kind: in fact, they mostly enjoy baiting each other, especially Johan and his family.
Pal Sverre Hagen plays the older Johan.
The Scandinavian countries export stories about how weird they all are, and it’s not hard to agree. They are as north as we are south. Both produce extremes of behaviour. In this case, we follow Johan Grande from shortly after he was born until … well, a long time in years, requiring at least three actors.
In the first scene, he is a plump babe in his mother’s arms, as his father emerges from the sea dragging a wire. Mama and papa smile at each other blissfully, then detonate the bomb papa has planted under a nearby bridge. Yes, it is wartime and Norwegians are sabotaging the path of the invading Germans, but it’s weirder than that. We never see any Germans. The Grande family just loves blowing stuff up. The neighbours think they are communists.
Pal Sverre Hagen in Everybody Hates Johan. Credit:Karl Erik Brondbo
By the time Johan (played as a boy by Paul-Ottar Haga) is about five, he is an orphan, cared for by his aunt and uncle. His only friend is the girl next door, Solvor (Gabija Petruskaite). Their love affair will run long but not smooth, through more thick than thin.
The adult Johan is played by Pal Sverre Hagen, a man mountain. Johan just adores lighting sticks of dynamite and lobbing them into the nearby bogs. No wonder the neighbours hate him.
It’s hard to describe the charm of this small but clamorous film. The beauty of the setting contrasts with the puny side of the people. Nature has not ennobled them. Johan is the constant victim of awful behaviour, which makes sure we are always on his side. The explosions take characters off the board with shocking regularity, so we don’t know who’s next – a good source of tension.