The Quake

An imitation of American cinema that comes from Norway.

Disaster films are one of those classics that cinema has used us to, mainly due to the dramatic and bloated Hollywood films. This film is not American, it comes from freezing Norway, but all the melodramatic and emphatic language of US cinema is present throughout the film.

I confess that I was a little surprised to see a Norwegian film about a devastating earthquake. I'm not a geologist, but I don't associate the danger of the most intense earthquakes with Norway. The country, naturally, suffers some moderate earthquakes every year and, in fact, a more intense event was recorded at the beginning of the 20th century, in which the capital was seriously affected. However, the Norwegian earthquakes are tickles when compared to those that shake Turkey, China, India and the Atlantic and Hawaiian archipelagos. The Oslo earthquake, which the film talks about, did not even reach an intensity of 6 on the Richter Scale, that is, it was weaker than the recent earthquake in Marrakesh and does not even compare to the presumed 9 that, in 1755, devastated Lisbon and significant parts of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.

In any case, the film is reasonably good and entertains us satisfactorily. I didn't see the previous film nor did I know it existed, although I suspected it when I saw some scenes at the beginning, a suspicion that I clarified when documenting myself to write this text. Naturally, being my first contact with Norwegian cinema, I didn't know the director John Andreas Andersen nor do I know any of the actors. However, what I saw pleased me: Andersen shows himself to be a disciple of US cinema and draws inspiration from films like “Volcano”, “Dante's Peak” and “Daylight” in a way that is so evident that it seems like a collage. The script copies elements from these different films and gives us an almost identical story, based on the hero's attempts to warn of an imminent catastrophe despite the deafness of the competent authorities to deal with it. However, the film has strength, drama, soul and movement, avoiding dead moments and making almost no concessions to cheap melodrama. The worst part is seeing that Andersen was unable to create a closed ending, leaving his characters hanging in danger without us knowing how they ended the day.

Perhaps more relevant than anything else, including the performance of each of the actors, is the excellent introduction and use of visual effects and CGI, which give us what we are looking for in a film of this kind: chaos, destruction and danger. The film manages to take advantage of the effects to create good dramatic tension and a convincing sense of danger. The actors, of course, are a welcomed help: although Edith Haagenruud-Sande has an irritating character who seems to act without any conscience in the face of danger, the protagonist, Kristoffer Joner, is solid enough to transform his hero into someone sympathetic. Less fortunate were the two actresses Ane Dahl Torp and Kathrine Johansen: despite all their efforts, which I recognize, their characters are left here, creating the illusion of a potential love triangle that never materializes. I also didn't like Jonas Oftebro's character, an actor who doesn't seem solid or consistent either: his character's father shows up unexpectedly when he was going out with his girlfriend, and he is unable to tell the little princess “be patient, we'll go out later; at least, I’m going to serve my dad's a hot coffee and listen to what he wants”? What a beautiful son!