Written by Katherine Murray.
Quick! An avalanche is about to kill you and your family. Do you:
A) Try to save your children, or
B) Grab your phone and run away, leaving your loved-ones to perish?
If you chose B, you may be the male lead of Force Majeure, the sometimes-funny, sometimes-serious Swedish movie up for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2015 Golden Globe Awards.
The story of Force Majeure – which is revealed in the trailers; I’m not giving anything away – is that a husband and wife, Tomas and Ebba, are enjoying a vacation with their two young children when what looks like an out-of-control avalanche comes barreling toward them. Believing they’re about to die, Ebba immediately tries to save the children, while Tomas abandons all three of them to save himself.
It turns out that the avalanche stops in time, so everyone’s all right, but the rest of the movie is about what it means – for Tomas and Ebba personally, and for their marriage – now that they know he’s a coward. From the moment the avalanche stops, they keep talking about it – and trying not to talk about it – as they try to decide whether it was a Big Deal, and whether it Means Something about the kind of person he is.
In real life, a “force majeure” is a clause in a contract that lets you out of your obligations in the event of a major catastrophe, such as a natural disaster. In Force Majeure, the question is whether Tomas – who generally has a good relationship with his family – can be forgiven for failing to be a good spouse and father, during extraordinary circumstances. What sounds like it could be a joke – man unexpectedly abandons family without a backward glance as soon as things get rough – becomes a very thoughtful and serious examination of what it means to be married to someone, what you have the right to expect from your spouse, and what the proper separation is between Self and Family.
As the film points out, women’s identities have traditionally been closely tied to their roles as wives and mothers, while men’s identities have been tied to their jobs and extra-familial achievements. It’s telling that, before the avalanche even arrives, Ebba (obliquely) accuses Tomas of focusing too much on work rather than his family. After the avalanche hits, the detail she zeroes in on is that he chose to save his phone – which he’s been using to check his work email – rather than helping her with the kids.
At the same time, the movie suggests that Ebba might be too wrapped up in her family. In one scene, she becomes disturbed and uncomfortable by the idea of polyamory, as explained to her by another tourist staying at the same resort. It isn’t just that she’s not poly herself – it’s that she can’t wrap her head around the idea that a polyamorous couple can lead separate lives while still being committed. When she’s separated from her family for an afternoon, she’s nearly catatonic without them, and bursts into tears when she sees them having fun without her.
By running away from the avalanche, Tomas separated himself from the we/us/ours that Ebba takes for granted as the centre of a meaningful relationship. There are lots of reasons why running away wasn’t the right thing to do, but the part that seems to bother her most is his selfishness.
For most of the film, Tomas and Ebba aren’t able to talk about what happened. It takes Ebba a long time to process what she’s feeling and, at first, she tries to pretend it’s OK. Tomas, on the other hand, at first tries to deny he was scared, and then denies he ran away. He retreats into a detached, intellectual position where he pretends to find it “interesting” that they have “different perspectives” on what happened, abandoning her a second time.
When they finally do talk about it, they drag in two of their friends, one of whom suggests that men from a certain generation were raised not to care about their children – something that starts a second argument about what it means to be a good father. Mats, the friend who’s been divorced already, defensively argues that he’s a good father because he provides financially for his children. His girlfriend points out that his children live with their mother, and suggests that he doesn’t put in enough face time to say he’s involved in their lives.
The disagreement spirals out in several different directions but, every direction it goes, it comes back to the idea that the roles we play in life, and the expectations we have of ourselves and each other, are coloured by gender.
Even though it’s not specifically discussed this way, there’s something gendered about the way Tomas initially refuses to admit that he was scared – about the way that he projects his feelings onto Ebba and tries to tell their friends that she was terrified while he stayed calm. There’s also something gendered about the way that Ebba can’t stop smiling when she’s angry – the way that she can’t stop talking about what happened, even when she hasn’t worked out what to say.
Force Majeure is about a world where men and women are supposed to be equal partners in marriage, but where we don’t yet know what that means. We’re watching an institution that used to mean one thing evolve to become something else. It’s exciting and confusing and the question, what does it mean to be a good partner or parent or woman or man, is one that gets more complicated as our notions of what’s possible expand.
Watching two people passive-aggressively argue about who did or didn’t run away when they were or weren’t about to die is a microcosm for the conflict at the heart of any union – what’s the separation between I and We?
No one knows. That’s what makes it riveting to watch.
Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.