This is a sweet, slight, gentle film about Ola Henningsen, a man in early middle age with a round, placid face who lives in a village community in eastern Norway for people with learning and developmental disabilities. (The original title in Norwegian translates as Ola: A Completely Ordinary Unusual Guy.) Director Ragnhild Nøst Bergem interviews Ola and follows him around the village; Ola describes himself as “slow” and yet also appears perfectly intelligent and articulate.
But the film shows us something over and above this: Ola’s relationship with Lasse, a Danish care worker who once lived in the community alongside the residents, helping with activities, and who did nothing to discourage Ola thinking of him as his “best friend”. But Ola was clearly very hurt, even heartbroken, when Lasse (inevitably) had to leave the community and go back to Copenhagen because his employment term had come to an end. The second part of the film shows Ola going on a trip to see Lasse (which would have been impossible without Bergem accompanying him as his carer) and to some extent confessing to him his feelings of abandonment.
This all appears to be resolved painlessly, and Ola is really never anything other than his usual smiley self. But you could be forgiven for wondering if there is another, more difficult story to tell here. Has Ola learned something now about his feelings for Lasse and about himself? Has he come to terms with the fact that he can never, in fact, be Lasse’s friend in the full sense of the word? It’s not entirely clear, and Lasse himself is not interviewed on his own about this. Investigating it might have created a more complicated movie than the one Bergem clearly wanted to create.
• Being Ola is in UK and Irish cinemas from 3 April.
