Never mind that title. Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex is the talkiest and least erotic instalment of the novelist turned film-maker’s Norwegian trilogy. A gentle exploration of masculinity, marriage and sexual orientation, this instalment unfolds mostly through long, searching conversations between two unnamed Oslo chimney sweeps, a thoughtful, Christian boss (Thorbjorn Harr) who has recently started to dream about David Bowie, and his oversharing subordinate (Jan Gunnar Roise). Haugerud leans into sustained theatrical dialogue, stylised and stagey, yet loaded with emotional ambivalence.
Harr’s character is puzzling over the meaning of Bowie’s nocturnal appearance – is he a stand-in for God? – when Roise’s sweep points towards queer desire. He only recently had sex with a man; not because he’s gay, he insists, but because he felt desired by his unexpected lover, an older gentleman client.
The bruised heart at the centre of the film belongs to the sweep’s blindsided wife, played with sincere bafflement by Siri Forberg. She has many questions, some sexually curious, others worried and wounded. If her husband gave in to feeling wanted once, can’t it happen again? Forberg is often obscured by Cecilie Semac’s otherwise warm and geometric cinematography, amplifying her many vocal concerns. For her it’s not the sex; it’s the intimacy. She is haunted by the idea that some stranger knows her husband’s expression during ejaculation.
The sweep’s religious colleague proves less concerned – “You remember being penetrated. You can keep that to yourself. Treasure it in your heart, like the Virgin Mary.” He has his own choral concerns. Maybe it’s Bowie or his chum’s confession, but his singing voice has changed. He brings his son to an appointment with a voice coach, who seizes his tongue and suggests that he read Hannah Arendt. It’s one of several pleasingly bizarre interludes that culminate in a campy song-and-dance number, a fitting spectacle to round off this appealing trilogy.
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On limited cinema release from Friday, August 22nd
