‘Dreams (Sex Love)’ review: Dag Johan Haugerud concludes his trilogy at Berlin

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud. Norway 2025. 110mins

“My life is in a cloud,” publicizes a younger lady in voice-over in the beginning of Desires – and a part of the pleasure, and at instances frustration, of this Norwegian psychological drama lies in feeling our manner by way of the mist to some kind of readability. That is the ultimate a part of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Intercourse/Desires/Love trilogy, competing in Berlin a yr after Intercourse performed right here in Panorama and some months after Love featured in Venice. Comprising three dramas which are thematically associated however with totally different casts, the set ends with a feminine coming-of-age story – right here, an mental maturing as a lot as a sexual and emotional one.

The 4 leads tesselate completely in a tightly-matched quartet

Elegantly styled, sensitively acted and crafted with eager intelligence, Desires is more likely to attraction to upmarket area of interest audiences though, even for dedicated art-house goers, the very literary register of each dialogue and development might really feel slightly rarefied. On the very least, nevertheless, Desires deserves admiration, with a terrific, extremely affecting lead from up-and-coming Ella Øverbye, beforehand in Haugerud’s 2019 Beware Of Kids. 

Øverbye performs teenage college scholar Johanna, who narrates the movie’s first part in voice-over. This contains Johanna’s account of falling in love along with her new language trainer (Selome Enmetu), an artsy, bohemian, charismatic younger lady who additionally occurs to be known as Johanne – spelled in a different way, however related sufficient to persuade her pupil that the 2 have a connection. She decides to pay her a go to at house.

Now, the narrative jumps a yr. No matter occurred between Johanna and Johanne is over, and the coed has written a full confessional account of it. She prints out a duplicate for her grandmother Karin (Anne Marit Jacobsen) to learn, on the understanding that it’s going to stay their secret. However Karin feels that she should talk about the contents with Johanna’s mom Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp), and the 2 older girls muse over the complexities of the manuscript and its contents – over how a lot is actual and the way a lot invented.

Later, issues purchase one other degree of delicacy when there’s discuss of the textual content being printed – with Karin, a longtime poet now in a artistic trough, questioning how she feels about being eclipsed by her granddaughter’s burgeoning expertise. In the meantime, it’s only at this late stage that the narrative jumps again to point out occasions elided earlier. 

Aside from the sensitivity of Øverbye’s Johanna, teenage feelings without end flickering by way of perplexing modifications, the 4 leads tesselate completely in a tightly-matched quartet. The intricacy that Haugerud weaved in Love, the place he mapped the relations between a community of various characters, operates right here on a extra compressed canvas, however to no much less intricate impact. 

As soon as once more, Haugerud makes use of the Oslo panorama very successfully, though Norwegian viewers can be greatest certified to guage how properly he makes particular areas signify. He additionally strikingly breaks with realism at key factors – notably when Karin desires about being caught in a dance efficiency on a woodland staircase. It is a very good-looking movie in DoP Cecilie Semec’s use of typically radiant mild and in its use of distinctive color.

One downside, nevertheless, is that the manicured class of the design could make this really feel an excessive amount of just like the drama of an enclosed, self-regarding middle-class milieu. Look past that to the complexities of the emotions, and the alternative ways wherein Haugerud and his younger protagonist narrate them, and there’s emotional intelligence to be discovered.