On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.
This engrossing documentary follows the much-acclaimed Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard as he is invited to guest-curate an exhibition of paintings by Edvard Munch at Oslo’s Munch Museum. Co-director Joachim Trier appears onscreen alongside Knausgaard as they visit several key locations from the celebrated painter’s life, searching for insights into his imagination and vision as they discuss his vastly influential oeuvre, his themes and obsessions, his approach to rendering everyday things and strongly emotional scenes alike. Knausgaard’s interpretation of Munch proves to be captivatingly unorthodox, and the Trier brothers thrillingly seek to connect his thoughts about the painter to his own literary project, yielding a double portrait of two of Norway’s most essential artists. (Film Society of Lincoln Center)
