Screened as part of 2024

Sex 2024

Directed by Dag Johan Haugerud

A chimney sweep confesses to having sex with a male customer much to the surprise of his colleague and wife. Dag Johan Haugerud’s candid and refreshing comic drama takes a candid and refreshing look at modern gender roles.

Norway In Norwegian with English subtitles
118 minutes Colour / DCP

Director, Screenplay

Producers

Yngve Sæther, Hege Hauff Hvattum

Cinematography

Cecilie Semec

Editor

Jens Christian Fodstad

Production Designer

Tuva Hølmebakk

Costume Designer

Ida Toft

Music

Peder Capjon Kjellsby

Cast

Jan Gunnar Røise, Thorbjørn Harr, Siri Forberg, Birgitte Larsen

Festivals

Berlin, Sydney 2024

Elsewhere

There has hardly been any investigation on contemporary male identity and sexuality as candid, insightful and hilarious as Norwegian auteur Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex. After winning all major laurels in Nordic cinema with his impressive fresco Beware of Children (2019), the acclaimed director and author embarks on an Oslo-set trilogy simply called Sex Dreams Love.  

The first instalment opens on one of the most tantalising and unexpected preludes in recent cinema. Two chimney sweeps frankly open up to each other on a coffee break in their office: the first reveals that he dreamt of being intensely looked at by none other than David Bowie, who was inspecting him as if he was a woman; the other confesses that he recently accepted the sexual advances of a male customer who asked him to have sex with him. But both men are “straight” and married to women. Here, the deft tone of the film and Haugerud’s rules of the game are immediately set.  

A fervent admirer of Eric Rohmer’s thickly scripted skirmishes of love and ethics, the Norwegian writer-director infuses irony, depth and compassion in each of his elegantly composed tableaux depicting how the two men cope with the turmoil these experiences bring to their relationships with their partners and family, but most of all with themselves. Featuring some of the brightest and funniest dialogues of 2024, Sex is a real eye-opener. — Paolo Bertolin