Munch

Four different actors take on Edvard Munch in I’m Not There-inspired biopic about one of the world’s greatest artists.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Munch as a 21-year-old romantic has just returned from Paris to a summery Vestfold. As a 29-year-old, Munch is misunderstood and rejected in contemporary Berlin and parties with Strindberg (played by Lisa Carlehed!). In an era of Bergmanesque existentialism, a middle-aged Munch has ended up in a mental hospital in Copenhagen, and as a shy 80-year-old, he is confronted by the Nazi occupying power in his large house outside Oslo. Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken, Norway’s most anarchist young auteur, takes on his country’s great icon with a light hand and creates a rowdy and colorful portrait of a complex artist. And like Munch’s four versions of “The Scream,” Dahlsbakken here delivers four versions of the Norwegian national poet.

• Annie Karlsson