The Bothersome Man

The Bothersome Man is a 2006 Norwegian film. It was directed by Jens Lien after a script by Per H. V. Schreiner. The film stars Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Petronella Barker and Per Schaaning. The story is about a man suddenly finding himself in an outwardly perfect, yet empty and unfulfilling dystopia, and his attempt to escape. The film was well received by critics, and was awarded three Amanda Awards in 2006. Synopsis As the film begins, Andreas Ramsfjell is underground in a train station. He is watching a couple kiss; however, the kiss lacks any sign of aesthetics - on the contrary, it looks hideous and abominable. Andreas seems to be increasingly unsettled until eventually he steps forward and jumps off the track in front of a subway train and the scene abruptly ends. In the following scene, he is on a bus which lets him off at a deserted gas station in the middle of nowhere. An older man greets Andreas with a welcome sign and escorts him into a car. From here he makes his way into a seemingly ideal city, where he soon finds himself with a corporate job, a furnished apartment and a beautiful girlfriend. The seemingly perfect life where everyone's needs are met soon proves to be vacuous. Andreas seems to be the only person in the city capable of experiencing sensation and emotion. The only respite from the emptiness is a meaningless materialism. As the slightly uncomfortable turns into the absurd, Andreas tries to escape, but finds there is no way out of the city. The beginning scene is revealed again in the midst of his misery after he gets his heart broken and he steps out onto the train tracks, only to find that he can survive any suicide attempt. Eventually he meets Hugo, a cleaner who has found a crack in the walls of his basement from which lovely music streams out and children are heard laughing. The two dig frantically, in secret, through the wall and discover it leads into a bright and colorful house, presumably back in the real world.