A Life In A Church: Favourite films 2024.
By Kjetil Nernes
TheZoneOfInterestPoorThingsDoNotExpectMuchFromTheEndOfTheWorldTheSettlersTheHoldoversPerfectDaysDune2AllOfUsStrangersKindsOfHappinessChallengersLoveLiesBleeding.
These are the films I saw last year. They are all good, some even fantastic, but most importantly they serve a specific purpose - a most important purpose - which is the hour or two or three of meditative, focused silence. I have been working on my music constantly for 30 years now. Ever since I was carried home dead drunk in a wheel barrow, got grounded for six months by my mom and while grounded discovered Nirvana and the guitar. I was fifteen and lived a pure and simple life back in Haugesund, Norway. This was in the mid-’90s and ever since I have been infused with music. By working on music I mean a constant pondering, grinding, pummeling, screwing and meditating on various types of rock music. I’m guessing quite the contrary to what our neighbours might think of a musician with his or her instrument and a sheet of notes. (I strongly advise against hiring me as a music teacher. It’ll be a disaster. I can barely play my own songs, I am a horrible teacher and even tuning a guitar is a tribulation)
My artistic work is a musical treadmill, mostly a burden, at times rewarding, but it fully occupies my inner life. I have trouble concentrating on anything else than music for longer than a few minutes. I can’t even focus while meditating. I remember the first time I tried to meditate. I sat down on the bed in one of our guest rooms with the lights low and in total silence, set the alarm to twenty minutes and closed my eyes. Strange lights were spinning in circles behind my eyelids, a tornado of thoughts and images came and went at lightning speed. Vivid memories of the past flared up as scintillating flashes of madness. Then monstrous beasts emerged in the corner of my eye - horrible wolf-like creatures red in eye and fang thrashing with rabies convulsions. And worst of all, there was some deep unexplainable sense of horror, similar to a sense of floating in a cold empty space when all life – planets, suns, galaxies - has been disintegrated and swallowed by dark matters and forces in some nightmarish future.
I concentrate on the media in front of me and the inner grind comes to an intermittent halt. This is when the magic of cinema begins for me and I suck it all in. I am in no way a cinephile or anything close to it. It’s real different to how I digest music, which is specific and all encompassing. I digest music scientifically, sceptically, with doubt and hesitation and utmost anticipation. I watch films just because I enjoy it. Usually I spend some time investigating top-lists and reviews and then make mental notes. A future watch list. It works well, there’s an abundance of great new films and TV series (and even music!). It comes to us like slow falling crystals of snow over a tranquil winter wonderland. You don’t even have to move out of the sofa. Does anybody remember the scarcity of the ‘80s and ‘90s? Back then you’d be overmoon for a couple of decent films a year. The really cool stuff came once a decade.
We live in a church far into the Scandinavian woods. It’s a beautiful old building. There’s a lot of nature around. The winters are cold but there’s not much rain or wind so I keep my hat on. We have our studio here and I’m happy about what we have. Any kind of regular social life has been swapped for the main purpose of making music. You’d have to go far to find a cinema or restaurant or even a café. Our friends live far away, most of them in other countries. So I watch films in solitude at home.
I sometimes watch older movies too. They have a slightly different appeal. They might transfer me to a different time and age. I’m from the west coast of Norway. The people of the west coast are nostalgic by nature. It must the constant presence of rain and wind and every other damn shape of unpleasant weather. It carves holes of nostalgia and black metal into our northern souls.
So go see ’The Zone Of Interest’ with its constant background churning of horrors and burning bodies and commanding shouts. The wild phantasmagorical ride of ’Poor Things’. The Romanian black slapstick of ’Do Not Expect Much From The End Of The World’, the Cormac McCarthy-inspired ruthlessness of ’The Settlers’, the new Christmas Holidays feelgood classic ’The Holdovers’ or learn how to properly clean a toilet to properly good music with ’Perfect Days’. These are my favourite films of 2024.
Kjetil Nernes
Kjetil is the vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of the Norwegian band Ã…rabrot.
Listen to them on Bandcamp or Spotify.
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