Disaster movies live and die by their clichés. What brings people into the seats are the doom-laden spectacles, though it is precisely these over-the-top depictions that often overshadow the human element that is oh-so-important in every one of these genre pictures. It is a tightrope to walk, with features from the past decade or so like The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and Pompeii wholly missing the point. A more realistic film that still delivers an intense natural disaster, but is rooted in the family that it portrays, is the 2015 Norwegian movie The Wave.
Instead of ‘go big or go home’, writers John Kåre Raake and Harald Rosenløw-Eeg, along with director Roar Uthaug (who has been given the reigns of the Tomb Raider reboot starring Alicia Vikander) decide to take a more focussed, local, ‘home’ driven perspective, setting their story in a picturesque, almost otherworldly little fjord nestled in the heart of Norway. A small, tightknit community lives in the impressive locale; it takes in nearly as many tourists as the amount of villagers living there.
Surrounded by impressive undulations, low lying waterways and high reaching mountain peaks, the community always lives under the shadow of a possible looming disaster – a gargantuan piece of rock is slowly separating from the mountain it is connected to. . . and will someday plunge into the water down below, causing a giant tsunami to hit the sightly town. It has happened before, and it will most definitely happen again.
Married couple Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) and Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) Eikjord have decided to move their family away from Geiranger, the beautiful, quaint town they have called home for so very long. Kristian, a knowledgeable geologist who is one of the experts who keeps a watchful eye on the ever dangerous situation, has been wooed away by a major oil company, and Idun, a hotel manager, will find work when they reach their new home. Their son Sondre (Jonas Hoff Oftebro) is wary of the move, a sullen teenager who likes his current slice of life. Their little girl, Julia (Edith Haagenrud-Sande), is just a happy-go-lucky child with a bubbly personality.
With a title like ‘The Wave’, it is hard for the viewer not to know what is coming, though the film making team intricately builds the suspense – it flows with ease, the impending doom approaching. Kristian is in tune with nature, and he has a sense that something is off. It is his last day on the job, and the rest of the team continuously shrug him off, even though there have been a few ‘glitches’ with their warning systems. Instead of leaving, he delves deeper, learning that there have been some severe tectonic shifts. Suggesting that they sound the alarm to vacate people, Kristian’s former boss, Arvid (Fridtjov Såheim), does not buy into the doom and gloom scenario his former employee is selling. After all, it is the tourist season, and there is no need to create a huge panic when there are no real major warning signs.
As the runtime ticks away, we watch in horror as the family separates. Idun, still working at the hotel, books a room for Sondre, while Kristian takes Julia back to their now empty house to spend one last night and say goodbye to the life they are walking away from.
Like a tense episode of 24, when the alarm sounds, the townspeople have ten minutes to get to higher ground before the 80 metre (or 260 plus foot) wave barrels into the village. This event showcases human nature – the bravery, foolhardiness, chickenheartedness, panic and heroics that set in when an out of the blue disaster occurs. An impressive feat for a smaller, non Hollywood feature, The Wave highlights that even the most beautiful, serene locales can hold danger that rears its ugly head in a split second. It is this duality that is on full display here; the splendour and magnificence of nature mixed with its threatening instability and the utter perils that come with it.
The reveal (following the damage) is like something from a post-apocalyptic film. Fires smoulder, buses and ships have been tossed around like toys being played with by a toddler in a bath, and filth litters the landscape, resembling something similar to that of a war-torn country. It looks nothing like the alluring sceneries filmed earlier in the motion picture.
Featuring impressive visuals and stunts, there are some scenes that will remind viewers of moments found in The Impossible, Titanic and 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure. There are also a few sequences that add nice new touches to the genre.
A more grounded catastrophe film that feels real (like it could actually happen – and according to revealing scrawl after the end of the feature, it very well could), it helps that the actors did their own stunts. Combining the ominous disaster tale with engaging characters that draw us in, The Wave is a solid piece of work. So, don’t run for shelter, wave this foreign film onto your watch list – it is no pipe dream.