12/34
It is a truly rare achievement
Story
Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of overstepping his bounds with his best friend from elementary school.. Norway’s official entry for the “Best International Feature Film” category of the 97th Academy Awards in 2025.. Norwegian films generally have a low international standard, but here we have a film that also manages to reach an exceptionally low Norwegian standard. The film seems to be made mostly by film school students. These students set out to create an experimental film unlike anything seen before, and they succeeded.
It is just exceptionally bad
However, they forgot a few things. Among other things, they forgot that even bad films usually have some trick in the script to keep the audience engaged until the end, some plot twists or other cinematic techniques. This film has none of that. Plus, it’s easily the cheapest movie ever made. The budget is limited to the actors, the camera, the lighting and sound crew, and in no scene is anyone technically challenged.
They didn’t even bother with the sets
If you’re strong enough to hold a camera and a microphone, you can make this movie. The movie takes place entirely in the hallways and rooms of a school. This is a school, a county-run school, and they most likely borrowed it for free. The actors don’t do a downright terrible job. But it’s hard for actors to act completely bad: it takes an exceptionally bad director to make actors look bad.
Incidentally, this is Norway’s contribution to this year’s Oscars
So, strictly speaking, it’s not the actors’ fault that the movie is terrible. However, since they agreed to play the roles, it will be part of their film resume to have appeared in the movie Armand. You can’t give the film a 0, but if you could, it would deserve a 0 simply because it doesn’t deserve a 1. The Norwegian Oscar committee decided that this is the best film made in Norway this year. How they came to this conclusion is a mystery, considering there have been quite a few bad Norwegian films made this year, but Armand is the worst.
In comparison, Sweden and Denmark even have dozens
There are plenty of bad Norwegian films to choose from that are much better than this one. For those who don’t know, Norway doesn’t have any major international players. This film, with its trip to the United States and its Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, proves to the entire film industry that Norway, for most practical purposes, is a nation without a functioning film environment.