Cheap Cool & Crazy (DVD) (Knut Erik Jensen) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Cool & Crazy

(aka Heftig og Begeisteret)
I love this movie.
perhaps it's because I lived in Finnmark, where it was filmed.
perhaps it's because I wandered Berlevåg with some of those guys and they treated us to ice cream.

the scenery is beautiful, the guys are hilarious, and the singing is usually wonderful. (only on a few songs are they slightly out of tune)

An Interesting Documentary on the Chorus Group in Norway
Made in 2001, "Cool and Crazy" records the daily activities of the members of male choir group in Berlevog, Norway. The town's population is about 1,200, and it is located at the seaside of the cold Nowegian Sea.

The film opens with a really surreal scene; the chorus members are standing upright by the stormy seaside (with many rugged rocks and splashing white waves), singing proudly in the blizzard. Yes, the English title "cool and Crazy" is no exaggeration. The group has several generations of singers, and many are working as fishermen there, or at the factory where they slice fish with machine. This documentary film follows the life of a few selected members (the eldest being 96 years old), mainly those of the elder ones.

Just as "Buena Vista Social Club" did, the members tell their own life story before the camera; one of them recollects his first love; another his days as a drug addict in the past; or another his dream of becoming an entertainer or a scholar when he was young. Among these interviews, you will hear them singing their numbers at various places, and the film ends with their tour to Russia, and the concert held there.

To be honest, as a documentary, "Cool and Crazy" is too slow to many of us (by "us" I mean most of the people outside Norway). Though I know it has become a commercial hit in Norway, the film per se is not, I am afraid, as interesting as the subject matter itself. The film introduces many engaging personalities of the people living there, but the way it presents them is not particularly engaging or original. The film goes on very quietly, as if unwilling to step into the deeper emotions of the singers. Many of them say they have nothing to regret, but it is true? All you can do is accept their views, but that is the fashion the film adapted. Probably we should respect the decision.

The film's greatest merit lies in the descriptions of the life of the people living in the small town of Norway, and in the occasional revelation of their own feelings about the place. All of them are proud of their group, but each member's reaction to the life in the town betrays slight difference. As a portrait of those very likable people, "Cool and Crazy" works best.