Armand (2024)

How much can a 6-year-old push the boundaries of a school? Or how far can a mother challenge
the school administration? And what limits can a director push in a film? If you’re the grandchild of
Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann, the answers to these questions might be a bit more complex and ambitious than usual. In his debut feature film, young director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel places us right in the middle of these questions, inviting the audience on a provocative journey.

Armand starts as a seemingly straightforward story about a “troubled child” but quickly dives into much deeper territory. At the heart of the film, Tøndel not only explores the disruptive and boundary-pushing energy of a young boy but also unpacks the unresolved emotional wounds of the adults around him. What begins as a child’s
conflict on the playground soon escalates into a battlefield of adult frustrations, fears, and desires, exposing the deep fractures within a family. The audience witnesses how a story that starts in the children’s play area morphs into an arena where the disappointments and suppressed feelings of the adults play out.

Tøndel’s directorial style clearly announces his own unique voice. Long, uncomf ortable silences, close-up shots of characters’ faces, an intense emotional tension, and a sense of looming uncertainty—all of these elements may feel familiar to those acquainted with Bergman’s cinema. Yet Tøndel reshapes this legacy to fit his own generation and storytelling approach. Under his direction, the narrative constantly veers into unexpected territory, pushing the
audience beyond the safety of the familiar into the unknown. 

The critique here might focus on the excessively prolonged storytelling, with the director’s inevitable use of surreal and Brechtian escape sequences gradually losing their impact over time. It seems the director starts to lose their cinematic strength. However, the film as a whole, combined with Renate Reinsve’s brilliant performance and masterful cinematography, still manages to compensate for this shortcoming.

Armand made a significant impact, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Camera d’Or and was nominated for the Un Certain Regard award.

Nil Birinci