49/48

It is a rare achievement indeed

Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of overstepping his bounds towards his best friend in elementary school. Norway's official entry for the "Best International Feature Film" category at the 97th Academy Awards in 2025. Norwegian films usually hold themselves to a low international standard, but here we have a film that also reaches an exceptionally low Norwegian standard. The film looks for the most part as if it was made by first-year film students. These students set out to create an experimental film that was unlike anything seen before, and they succeeded.

It is simply exceptionally bad

However, they forgot a few things. Among other things, they forgot that even bad films usually have a few tricks in the script to keep the viewer in suspense until the end - some cliffhanger or other cinematic techniques. This film has none of those. In addition, it is undoubtedly the cheapest film ever made. The costs are limited to the actors, camera, lighting and sound crew, and in no scene is anyone technically challenged.

They didn't bother with the set

If you are strong enough to hold a camera and a microphone, you can make this film. The film takes place entirely in the corridors and rooms of a school. It's a school, a school run by the district, and they probably rented it for free. The actors don't do bad work directly. But it's hard for actors to just act badly - it takes a particularly bad director to make actors do badly.

Incidentally, this is Norway's contribution to this year's Oscars

So, strictly speaking, it's not the actors' fault that the film is terrible. But since they agreed to take the roles, part of their cinematic record will be that they appeared in Armand. You can't give the film a 0, but if you did, it would deserve a 0 simply because it doesn't deserve a 1. The Norwegian Oscar committee decided that it was the best film made in Norway this year. How they came to this conclusion is a mystery, considering that there have been many bad Norwegian films made this year, but Armand is the worst.

By comparison, Sweden and Denmark have dozens

There are many bad Norwegian films to choose from that are much better than this one. For those who don't know, Norway has no internationally renowned actors. This film, with its trip to the US and its Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film, shows the entire film industry that Norway, in many practical ways, is a country without a functioning film environment.