Film: The other side of sunday, regi Berit Nesheim 1996

Marie Theisen, Bjørn Sundquist, Hildegunn Riise, Sylvia Salvesen, Martin Dahl Garfalk, Jørgen Langhelle m.fl. Regi: Berit Nesheim, Norway, 1996. Manus: Berit Nesheim and Lasse Glom, based on the novel. Foto: Arne Borsheim. Musikk: Geir Bøhren. Norwegian language, English subtitles. 35mm, colour, 1 hour 37 minutes. The Other Side of Sunday Each Sunday at five minutes to eleven, the vicar's young daughter sits in church. She has calculated that by the time of her confirmation, she will have spent 640 hours in the uncomfortable, wooden pew. She feels trapped in the joyless, enforced Christian atmosphere that permeated Norway in the fifties. Maria longs for life outside this "prison". She wants to become something different than the "church hags"; the lumpy masses of grey, joyless women in hats and shapeless coats that occupy the pews behind the vicar's family in the church. She wants to be like the "other kind" of women around the county, the kind with perky breasts and sinful bodies, that won't get into heaven. She wants to live! Maria's path leads her away from the "church hags" and towards the youth of the fifties. With a group of youngsters, she sneaks off on trips to the cottage and other forbidden adventures, to discover a dizzying puberty. The Other Side of Sunday is a film full of humor and warmth, but the meetings between the sexes are not always romantic. According to the moral code of those times, this is not only sinful, but unclean and bound to lead straight to hell! The Other Side of Sunday was nominated in the category "best foreign film" at the 1997 Academy Awards. NFI/red.