User Reviews

This little film was better than expected, reading some of the reviews. If you can stand a simple story about hunters and the hunted, and like a film from the rural medieval ages, this might be a film for you. The film was already sold for cinema showings in 55 countries before it premiered in Norway, after being a success at TIFF in Toronto.

The poster tells a lot, but this is not an action film, it give you a bleak glimpse of everyday life just a few years back in a poor country, where half the population was killed by the black death plague. It's a fictive story, but you buy it, since both acting is good, as well as the technical stuff is well done. Together with grand natural nature mountain landscapes, this is very pleasant to watch.

The girl, Signe, goes through a horrific start in this story, watching her family being slaughtered, before she is captured by the lawless killers. As the title of the film tell, Flukt (which means flight, like in a runaway from hunters) she manages to escape, which is the English title of the movie. And it's not a easy one, this escape.

Director Roar Uthaug (known from Cold prey) knows his work. This is both exciting and pretty. The effects are good, the photography is beautiful and well done. The acting is good, the girls are good, the villain played by Berdal nothing short of frighteningly amazing! Then, what is wrong? Well, really nothing. Things could only be slightly better. Except you'd probably like a more advanced story. I don't think this is the most important, because many still will enjoy this glimpse of the 1300's in rural Norway. It's bleak and grim, but still likable.

Actually another Norwegian film comes to mind, watching this, Veiviseren ("Pathfinder" in original version, not the American remake with the same name) which was an Academy Award nominee back in the eighties. This is better, coming 25 years later. But time has moved on, and Veiviseren wouldn't hold the quality today.

Having absolutely no expectations to this movie, I sat down to watch it with a clean slate, so to speak. And I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised by it.

The story in "Escape" (or "Flukt" as it is named in Norwegian) is about the harsh life in Norway in the mid 14th century Norway, a country ravaged by plague. Witnessing her father, mother and brother savagely slain by the hands of a group of outlaws, the young girl Signe is captured and comes to realize that escaping the clutches of the outlaws is the only way to survive the oncoming ordeal.

I will say that, despite having a fairly predictable storyline, then the story told in "Flukt" was actually interesting enough and it captivated me throughout the entire movie, from start to end. And this was really helped nicely along by good acting performances and also the breathtaking nature of the Majestic Norwegian wilds.

If you have the disc with the extra materials, then the 'visual effects' extra material is well worth watching. I was especially impressed with the way they touched up the Norwegian wilds through the use of CGI and effects. And the end result as seen on the screen as you watch the movie is just spectacular.

The people on the cast list were doing great jobs with their given roles, and Isabel Christine Andreasen (playing Signe), along with Milla Olin (playing Frig) and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (playing Dagmar) really carried the movie well. I ordered this movie because I wanted to see Kristian Espedal (aka Gaahl) in the movie, where he plays Grim. And anyone listening to black metal should be familiar with Gaahl.

"Flukt" is an entertaining movie that is also visually spectacular, not in a Hollywood CGI galore special effects fest, but in a majestic and visually stunning way in terms of scenery, touch ups to the wilderness and such.

The DVD cover does however indicate that you will witness some massive battles, given what is portrayed in the back of the three outlaws standing in the center. But, there is no such massive battles anywhere in the movie. So the DVD cover could have been a little bit better put together to honestly portray what you are getting here.

Don't let a simple fact like a foreign non-English movie scare you away from watching "Flukt", because it is most definitely well worth watching. And if you don't understand Norwegian, unlike me, then the movie does, of course, come with English subtitles.

I think we could say this is a prime example of Nordic efficiency. The main actors responsible in conveying the emotions necessary for this film to be poignant are all well picked and play their role plainly. The minor string-score in the background and slow-mo scenes are there but aren't overly dramatic. The story is terribly simple, a mere reiteration of typical narratives, and yet the viewer gets pulled in and very quickly finds himself curious about what the next scene will bring.

The film is laudable in its efficiency: how they managed to make a whole film (albeit only 1hrs 20) with such a limited amount of characters, how they've managed to keep the film going and produce good enough scenes with so few characters and so little to work with in the story, and finally, in how they managed in such a short time to make the viewer care for those lead roles.

There are interesting choices in the film: showing the older girl teach the little girl how to use a spoon, that familial sisterly bonding and cultural transmission. The daughter-crazy warrior woman, after she's heard one of her better men say to her "let the girls make their choice, let them live their natural lives", shoots right into his heart out of frustration, as she couldn't handle the truth and kills the messenger. And at the end, she finally hears the little girl say "Mommy", but it's only a lure, and it's her naivety that failed her.

Quite a few interesting themes, each scene is good. The relationships betw. the main characters complex and intriguing, and it's very well paced. 7.5/10

With lack of other movies to watch in Norway, I decided to watch this on a lonely Friday night. I had never heard of it before I stood in line to buy a ticket. The movie was looking good based on the poster, and there wasn't much to read about it on the internet.

The movie starts with a family of four moving away from their old town. The movie takes place 10 years after the Black Death. On the road, they get stopped due to the cliché moment of stones in the road, and guess what's happening now? Yes, raiders.

After the raiders taunt their parents, the little boy try to run away. He gets shot by the leader with a crossbow. But, the girl get's another fate. The leader of the raiders, a woman who had to escape her old town after she gets the blame for the pest when it arrives. She had a girl with her, who wanted a little sister, but she couldn't get anymore children.

They take the girl with them back to the camp, where they bind her up. As the name suggests, she escapes. With the little girl.

The rest of the movie is just a bad chase scene. I got bored after 5 minutes, but it would't end. I think the movie is supposed to be thrilling, but no.

The end up on the top of a cliff, where the girl jumps, and the small one goes back to the raiders. This is where the movie should have ended, but no. They had to do a cliché ending with her killing the raiders, and escaping with the girl.

My favorite part was the credits. One of the only good things with the movie, was the landscape and graphical quality.

If you had told me I would be watching a subtitled Norwegian film, I would have told you to, "Go ahead and pull the other leg". But a long weekend was in front of me and I wanted to rent a few movies to enjoy some moments of escapism. So when I saw the title, "Escape" I was drawn to it. After reading the short description, in which it did NOT mention it was either NORWEGIAN or SUBTITLED, I decided to rent it. I found out about the Norwegian when writing came on the screen to explain the set up for the story. While I was having an "Oh no. What's this?" moment on the inside, I instinctively was reading the translation on the outside: " 1638 Norway; black plague has killed half the population; lawlessness and hardship covers the land; a few people risk the danger to wander in the hope of finding new lives and new hope." I was hooked. It takes only another few minutes for the action to begin. Like those nightmares we all get where something big and horrible is trying to catch us and we feel too small and weak to defend ourselves, this appears to be your typical "Chase" movie. Just like the Terminator. At the heart, it is the story of two young girls running through the bleak, barren and beautiful landscape to escape from a gang of ruthless killers, led by a bleak, barren and beautiful woman. But beyond that it departs from usual "chase" territory when the story gradually reveals the reasons behind what's going on. As we learn about the characters histories and motivations of hate, love, selfishness and pain, which are believably brought to life by the sincere and fierce acting of this cast (especially the main actors: Isabel Christine Andreasen, Milla Olin and Ingrid Bolso Berdal) we can't help but ask the deeper question: "whom" is truly escaping "what"? So unlike other "Chase" films, you will want to leave your brain powered ON for this one. It takes a lot for me to give a movie 9 stars out of 10. My main criteria is two fold. 1) Is there anything about this movie I would change or fix? and 2) Was I lost in the story? The Answers: 1) I could find nothing I personally would change and 2) I was definitely "captured" by this story and did NOT want to "escape". Laura-Lee