Quick, name your favorite movie from Norway. If nothing immediate comes to mind it is because very few Norwegian films get imported to the U.S. and the few that do are usually art house fare that play to niche audiences in the major cities. Regardless of that, Norway has had a thriving film industry for years and a few filmmakers have developed international reputations such as Morten Tyldum, who was Oscar nominated for Best Director for The Imitation Game (2014) starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the British mathematical genius Alan Turing, and Joachim Trier, whose 2021 movie The Worst Person in the World received Academy Award nominations for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay. One of the few exceptions to the above is Orions Belte (English title: Orion’s Belt, 1985), which is considered Norway’s first contemporary action thriller and the biggest box office success in its own country for years. It also won critical acclaim and garnered numerous industry awards in Norway even though Orion’s Belt is essentially a B-movie thriller. Still, the lean, stripped-down narrative, based on Jon Michelet’s 1977 novel (the screenplay is by Richard Harris), and Hollywood-style production values transformed this audience-pleasing genre exercise into something much more intriguing and thought-provoking.
The term Orion’s Belt usually refers to the celestial constellation of three massive stars but the title of the film is a reference to a nickname for the group of islands that make up the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean. The film opens as three rowdy, hard-drinking seaman try to make ends meet by hiring out their rundown cargo boat named Sandy Hook for tourist sightseeing trips. Lars (Sverre Anker Ousdal) is the captain of the vessel and is always looking for ways to make money on the side, which means occasionally entering into some shady business deals involving marine salvage. His shipmates, Tom (Helge Jordal), accompanied by his dog Skipper, and Sverre (Hans Ola Sorlie), usually go along with his schemes despite reservations.
The tone of Orion’s Belt quickly changes from light comedy to drama when the three sailors agree to pick up an abandoned bulldozer from a deserted mining site and dump it into the ocean so the owner can collect on the insurance. The trio succeed in retrieving the bulldozer but decide to secretly sell it to a buyer in Greenland for an additional profit. All goes according to plan until the Sandy Hook takes an alternative route back to Svalbard and encounters a storm at sea that damages their steering equipment. Desperate to repair their boat, the sailors travel by inflatable raft to the closest harbor which might have residents who can help. What they find instead is a seemingly deserted rocky landscape with a system of caves. While investigating the sailors discover a hidden communications center operated by Russians and flee the area. But while they are escaping, a Russian guard opens fire with a machine gun and injures Sverre. Lars returns fire, killing the Russian, and the trio return to the ship, only to be pursued by a helicopter with Russian sharpshooters determined to kill them.
For the first half of Orion’s Belt, the movie zips along as a grim survival thriller but, just as you think you know where the narrative is going, it changes course and turns into a paranoid conspiracy drama along the lines of 1974’s The Parallax View. What makes the movie still relevant and timely today are the political implications of the fragile Norway-Russia relationship in this area of the Arctic Ocean, which is midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole.
According to The Arctic Institute website, “Norway’s “High North” will play a central role in the conflict between NATO and Russia, because Russia has positioned its strategic forces there, aimed at the US and NATO. Therefore, Russia continues to hold military exercises outside Norway’s living room door to warn Norway, NATO, and the US to stay away. The message is clear: “If you get close to our strategic forces (read submarines and missiles), we will take control of the areas north of Lofoten in Norway. This type of threat is not new, as Norway found itself in a similar situation during the Cold War…..[It is simply because] the infrastructure in the High North is both more vulnerable and more extensive than that in the South of Norway.”.”
In Orion’s Belt, Tom becomes the hero by default but when he manages to make it back to Norway, government authorities refuse to believe his story about the Russians and their secret communications center. It is obvious the Norwegian government doesn’t want the situation to become an international incident and provoke a war with Russia but Tom wants to go to the press with his story and only his girlfriend Eva (Kjersti Holmen) believes him.
Although Orion’s Belt was released in 1985, it wasn’t picked up for U.S. theatrical distribution until 1987 when New World Pictures released it in an English language version. In fact, while the movie was being made, director Ole Solum shot his scenes in Norwegian and then a second director, Tristan de Vere Cole, stepped to reshoot the same scenes in English. It was a wise decision because Orion’s Belt is a riveting genre thriller that seems ready made for U.S. audiences and even Variety sung its praises in a review that called it “a superbly mounted, convincingly told adventure thriller. Action scenes, such as the helicopter attack, are excitingly staged, and the suspense never lets up. As the rugged Tom, Helge Jordal is very good.”
Although the movie might not have attracted that many American moviegoers during its theatrical release, it performed well enough to warrant a VHS release from New World Pictures in the U.S. and Warner Home Video in Europe.
Filmed in Svalbard, Kjollefijord and Oslo, Norway, the locations in Orion’s Belt and the cinematography by Harald Gunnar Paalgard are stunning to behold and capture the beauty of this pristine frigid region, which is now falling victim to escalating climate changes. The music score by Geir Bohren and Bent Aserud also compliments the changing mood of the film as it goes from mixing whale sounds and Inuit songs to more action-charged Richard Wagner-like musical cues.
Among the cast members, only Sverre Anker Ousdal in the role of Lars is probably familiar to movie lovers who see a lot of international cinema. He has appeared in Liv Ullman’s historical drama Kristin Lavransdatter (1995) and Jan Troell’s Hamsun (1996), a WW2 drama with Max von Sydow. And Ousdal is particularly memorable as Stellan Skarsgard’s policeman partner in Erik Skjoldbjaerg’s chilling thriller Insomnia (1997), which was remade in 2002 by Christopher Nolan featuring Al Pacino and Robin Williams in the leads.
Orion’s Belt is not currently available on DVD or Blu-Ray in the U.S. but you can stream the original Norwegian version (with English subtitles) in a good quality print on Youtube.
Other links of interest:
https://www.factmonster.com/culture-entertainment/film/networks-norway
https://www.thefreshfilms.com/actors/ousdal_sverre_anker.htm
Cinema Sojourns 