Faith And Reckonings In A Dubious World: Joachim Trie’s Thelma
Cinema can become a tool for the exorcising of demons. Repressions and life experiences can suddenly be evoked and shared with everyone in the theater or watching at home. Joachim Trie’s dark and perceptive film Thelma is a gothic parable which serves as an interesting examination of the consequences of repression. A young girl becomes the receptor of her parents’ rigid, one could say Puritan, religious views of the world. Released in only a few arthouse venues and now available for streaming via Amazon, Thelma touches upon issues rarely gazed upon by mainstream/fantasy cinema. In an increasingly secular- albeit not rational- world, organized religion is being relegated more to a habit of the past. It even seems the Pope now claims hell does not exist. But for those raised within islands of dogma, belief is a very powerful and palpable part of life.
The film stars Eili Harboe as Thelma, a young girl in Norway raised in a strictly conservative, religious home by two stern parents. They have the air of the sort of classic Protestant homes one still finds in middle America. Raised apart from any liberal notions of sex or unreligious social circles, Thelma is thrown into college like an explorer thrust into an alien society. Her peers refrain of any hostility towards her unsure, restrained manner, but they can’t help but give away that look of curiosity when dealing with an oddity. As Thelma discovers the worldly indulgences of drinking, smoking some pot and exploring one’s sexuality, an inner conflict begins to boil. Yet there is another factor involve here. Thelma is also manifesting a supernatural force or power that manifests itself through subtle or open- even terrifying- forms…
To read the rest of Rengifo’s review of Thelma, go to Riot Material magazine: https://www.riotmaterial.com/faith-and-reckonings-joachim-tries-thelma/
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