Thelma
dir. Joachim Trier · 2017
Thelma, a sheltered freshman, grapples with newfound feelings and the haunting shadows of her past as she navigates university life in Oslo. The film immerses viewers in her emotional landscape, where the tension between desire and repression manifests in unsettling ways. Watching it feels like traversing a dreamscape, where every moment is tinged with both beauty and dread.
Having just enrolled at a university in Oslo against her stern parents' will, the sheltered Biology freshman and devout Christian, Thelma, leaves for the first time the isolated Norwegian countryside, to start a new life away from home. Tangibly lonely, a casual conversation and one unexpected friendship with the beautiful fellow student, Anja, will broaden Thelma's hazy horizons; however, as the glacially alluring misfit wrestles with an onslaught of novel feelings, little by little, an unprecedented psychosomatic manifestation of repressed emotions start to take over. Indeed, a mystery cloaks soft-spoken Thelma's past, and the more she struggles to renounce her nebulous desire, the more violent becomes her quivering awakening. Can Thelma unearth a denied truth behind the stinging temptation?
Talking points
- the impact of repression on mental health
- the intersection of faith and personal identity
- the nature of friendship and its transformative power
- the portrayal of female sexuality in cinema
