Troubled Water

Jan Thomas comes out of prison. At eighteen he was held responsible for the death of a child, and he does not entirely know himself what happened. On parole he takes a job as an organist in a church. Agnes, who works at the school attached to it, is that child's mother, and one day she sees him at the organ. Erik Poppe directs. The structure is split in two. The first part is entirely from Jan Thomas's point of view; the second retells the same period from Agnes's. The same scenes return and carry an entirely different meaning. That structure is the idea. Forgiveness is built not as an abstract argument but as two people looking at one event, and the film sides with neither. The music is inside the narrative. The organ pieces Jan Thomas plays carry the feeling of the scenes, and the acoustics of the church are at the centre of the sound design. It won widely at the Amanda awards in Norway and was cited as one of the country's strongest films of the period. Who it is for: viewers who like Scandinavian drama and films built on crime and conscience. Who it is not for: the death of a child is heavy material, and the repeated scenes in the second part slow the film for some.