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Before now, the only thing which separated Berlev氓g from all the other fishing villages in northern Norway was that it provided the setting for Isak Dinesen's story "Babette's Feast". Thanks to Knut Erik Jensen's "Cool and Crazy" (Heftig og Begeistret) it now has another claim to fame - the 30-strong Berlev氓g Male Choir, whose exquisite renditions of traditional folk ballads and hymns have shot it from remote obscurity to international acclaim.
The progressive closure of fisheries, its catastrophic impact on the local economy, and the unremittingly bleak climate give the members of this unlikely body little reason for cheer. Yet the choir offers an escape from the hardships of the real world, while the camaraderie it inspires brings warmth and good humour to this most forbidding of outposts.
Focusing on just a few of the choristers - a pair of geriatric brothers, a former drug addict, and the chain-smoking, wheelchair-bound conductor - Jensen paints a vivid portrait of quirky eccentricity and uncommon dedication to a seemingly irrelevant pursuit. Nowhere is this more evident than in the film's final third, which finds the choir travelling to Murmansk to give a rare live performance before an enthusiastic Russian audience.
To non-Norwegians, however, the songs themselves swiftly merge into one, a problem hardly alleviated by some frankly baffling subtitles. Not that it has stopped this obscure oddity becoming a cult on the festival circuit. Indeed, a second documentary has already been made of the choir's recent visit to New York and performance at Ground Zero.
In Norwegian with English subtitles.
