{"id":11641,"date":"2022-12-11T11:30:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T16:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/?p=11641"},"modified":"2026-03-23T00:03:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:03:05","slug":"things-are-only-impossible-until-theyre-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/things-are-only-impossible-until-theyre-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Things Are Only Impossible, Until They’re Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

TROLL – directed by Roar Uthaug<\/a> – (limited spoilers)<\/h4>\n
\"Karoline<\/a>

Karoline Viktoria Sletteng Garvang<\/a> in her film debut as Sigrid Hodne<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Near Hjerkinn<\/em> in Norway, workers tunnel through the Dovre<\/em> mountains to build an extension to the Nordland Railway, which currently ends at Trondheim<\/em> some 165 kilometers to the north. After explosives are detonated, a much larger, natural explosion occurs, launching a cloud of boulders that rains on both the environmentalists protesting the drilling and the workers conducting it. Then something large<\/em> comes out of the mountain. <\/p>\n

Soon after all that, paleontologist Nora Tidemann<\/strong> (Ine Marie Wilmann<\/a>), who is in the middle of a dig on the northern Norwegian coast, is surprised and irritated to be summoned to Oslo<\/em>. (After many unproductive months, her expedition had finally discovered something. We are shown part of what she uncovers, but the exact nature of the discovery is not revealed, and we may need to wait for TROLL’s first sequel to find out about it. Through things unrelated to Nora’s dig, we do learn that the skeletal structure of a troll is similar to that of a human.) <\/p>\n

\"Mads<\/a>

Three against a Troll: Kaptein Kristoffer Holm, Nora Tidemann, and Andreas Isaksen<\/p><\/div>\n

Nora is met in Oslo<\/em> by Andreas Isaksen<\/strong> (Kim Falck<\/a>) who escorts her to a meeting between the Prime Minister (Anneke von der Lippe<\/a>) and her advisors. On the way there, Sigrid<\/strong> (Karoline Viktoria Sletteng Garvang<\/a>) and Andreas exchange the Vulcan salute. (Nora, who looks a lot like a young Dr. Pulaski, acknowledges the Trek reference.) Sigrid is the government’s tech and communications expert. Later in the story, Nora will doubt Sigrid’s abilities, and Andreas will tell her: “Siggi is Spock to my Captain Kirk. Siggi has never failed. That’s not even remotely possible.”<\/em> <\/p>\n

\"Ingvild<\/a>

Ingvild Bryn<\/strong>, news anchor for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation<\/a> has a cameo alongside Tom Nilssen<\/a>, NRK journalist and programmer.<\/p><\/div>\n

After Nora gently suggests that they might be confronting something supernatural (she will write “hypernatural” in her notebook later) Sigrid bursts into the room with footage from a cellphone camera she’s hacked into, and they all watch as a fifty-meter tall biped, partially obscured by rocks and dirt, bursts from the mountain. One would think this would give Nora’s hypernatural ideas more credibility, but the others are unable to overcome their skepticism. Grasping at straws, the PM makes Nora a scientific adviser and sends Andreas with her to Lesja<\/em>, where the creature was last seen. Kaptein Kristoffer Holm<\/strong> (Mads Sj\u00f8g\u00e5rd Pettersen<\/a>) joins them as military escort (and helicopter pilot).<\/p>\n

\"locations<\/a>

Map showing locations visited by the troll. For scale, the distance betwen Lesja and Hjerkinn is about 45 kilometers. (click image for larger version)<\/p><\/div>\n

Nora decides to contact her father Tobias<\/b> (Gard B Eidsvold<\/a>), who was once a noted folklorist, but whose theories became sufficiently outlandish to get him diagnosed with a mental disorder. They find him living as a recluse near Steinbudalen<\/em>. From him we learn that up until 1840, contact with Trolls was forbidden by Norwegian law, and that in 1943 “the Nazis used Russian war prisoners to build the Nordland railway, but only got as far as Bod\u00f8. Some believe the construction stopped due to something they found inside the mountain…It would have been hard to prove, so they got rid of the witnesses and suppressed all of it.”<\/em> (Mia Bennett, writing for Cryopolitics<\/a>, explains that, at war’s end, the Nazis ceased construction at Dunderland<\/em>, 200 kilometers from Bod\u00f8<\/em>, so that part of what Tobias says seems inaccurate.) <\/p>\n

\"Ine<\/a>

Nora Tidemann<\/strong> and her father Tobias<\/strong>, who refers to the works of Theodor Kittleson<\/a>, Peter Christen Asbj\u00f8rnsen<\/a>, and J\u00f8rgen Moe<\/a> saying that “every recorded fairy tale was written to tarnish the trolls’ reputation” portraying them as “evil, and stingy.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Regarding trolls and Norwegian law, the Large Norweigan Encyclopedia<\/a> states: “The oldest Norwegian Christian laws from the 10th and 12th centuries contain a clear prohibition against seeking knowledge from trolls. In Norway’s and Iceland’s first land law from 1274\u20131276 ( Magnus Lagab\u00f8te’s land law ) and 1281 respectively, making contact with trolls was an offense that carried the most severe punishment. The laws specifically prohibited ‘sitting out to wake up trolls.'” <\/em><\/p>\n

This particular troll is clumsy and destructive, but most of the deaths he causes are inadvertent. (He does with malice of forethought eat one soldier.) The only bit of property that the beast goes out of his way to destroy is a neon billboard advertising Freia Chocolate<\/a>. It turns out the troll does have good reason to be angry, and his actions at Hunderhossen Family Park<\/em> in Lillehammer<\/em> show he might be less of a threat than authorities make him out to be. <\/p>\n

\"Karoline<\/a>

Sigurd<\/strong> looking pleased with herself after saving the day (and punching out a general).<\/p><\/div>\n

The Prime Minister, who appears surprisingly uninformed about Norwegian folklore, decides ultimately to make use of a top secret and very destructive (though probably not nuclear) missile to destroy it. Nora and Andreas, with the help of Sigrid, try to provide an alternative to that approach, which leads to one of the best chase sequences you are likely to run across anywhere, involving what is described by Lord Chamberlain Hoffsjef Sinding<\/strong> (Bjarne Hjelde<\/a>) as the Queen of Norway’s favourite pickup truck<\/a>. Sigrid (who is really the best reason to watch this film) manages to control the military’s destructive tendencies by elegantly hacking into their systems.<\/p>\n

The events at the start of TROLL bear some similarity to what happened at the start of GODZILLA<\/a>. In that film, a survivor of the freighter Eiko-Maru<\/a> described what happened when that beast was first sighted: “I’m telling you,”<\/em> he said to a rescuer, “the sea just exploded.”<\/em> However, there is a major difference between the two tales. TROLL’s heroic scientist fares much better in the end than does Daisuke Serizawa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We can certainly hope for a sequel. To paraphrase the final lines of Ishir\u00f4 Honda<\/em><\/a>‘s 1954 film, if we persist in tunneling helter skelter through mountains and such, another troll may (somewhere in the world) rise again.<\/p>\n

\n

TROLL can be streamed on Netflix<\/a>.<\/b><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TROLL – directed by Roar Uthaug – (limited spoilers) Near Hjerkinn in Norway, workers tunnel through the Dovre mountains to build an extension to the Nordland Railway, which currently ends at Trondheim some 165 kilometers to the north. After explosives …<\/span> <\/p>\n

+<\/p>\n

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