The Telegraphist

Spring of 1903 in a small Norwegian village by the coast. Ove Rolandsen is the telegraphist of the village, and also an experienced seducer. He cannot stand the fact that the beautiful Elise is being married off to the significantly older captain Henriksen against her will. The only way to win Elise is by succeeding with his invention. To finance the project he gets into a real tangle, which results in Elise's interest in Ove cooling down. He settles down on a remote island, and the unhappiness is complete until one day his invention is approved.

COMMENTARY
The Telegraphist is set in a small village in Norway along the Nordland coast, at the turn of the century. For the most part it is shot on Kjerring0Y in Nordland in Norway, and if you are not sold on Norway already, you are guaranteed to be after watching this film. Because this is beautiful. Beautiful enough to take your breath away. A small picturesque fishing village by the sea around midsummer is portrayed. Glittering, calm water, bare flat rocks and cliffs and high snowy fjelds. But the giddy feeling of beauty is not entirely dependent on the terrific natural scenery. The film photographer Philip 0gaard manages to capture the light, the serenity, the stormy darkness, and convey them precisely into the moods of The Telegraphist, and that is no mean feat. The languishing, classical tones of Randall Meyer's music becomes the crowning glory.
The local telegraphist Ove Rolandsen is the protagonist of the movie. With enviable feeling, naivety, inventiveness, passion and love - love of life and women - he leads his uncomplicated life, run by his feelings. Because Rolandsen is a man of feelings and
dreams who sees pure and sincere beauty in everything. Not least in the women of the village, who all fall like logs for his irresistible charm. Rolandsen is not slow in helping himself, since there are no conventional rules in his life. With sweet songs he occupies the hearts of the hard working women in the fish glue factory, and in an unaffected, but nonetheless reverent approach towards God and the Churcll, he also makes the vicar's wife's broken dreams of physical passion come true. All the beauties of the village will have to consider themselves outdone by the patriarch's unreachable daughter Elise Mack who doesn't leave Rolandsen's pining dreams alone, despite her questionable love life.
The telegraphist conquers the hearts of all these women and also their bodies. With a busy schedule he manages to have a whole succession of ladies in and out of his house at all hours.
When the telegraphist has some time to spare he philosophizes upon life and the stars. He is also working ambitiously on an invention: the mother of all fish glues.
Jarl Kulle makes a brilliant interpretation of the Swedish patriarch Mack, who owns the fish glue factory in the village, and who together with his daughter Elise's influential consort, captain Henriksen, is planning to secure the future of his fish manufactures.
Elise, played by Marie Richardson, does not look forward with joy to her impending marriage to the significantly older captain Henriksen. Instead she becomes increasingly attracted to the telegraphist Rolandsen. The attraction grows stronger and stronger.':'
Linda Grill

Orig. titel
Telegrafisten: Medverkande
Björn Floberg, Marie Rickardson, Jarl Kulle: Producent
Petter Borgli: Manus
Lars Saabye Christensen: Foto
Philip 0gaard: Musik
Randall Meyers: Talat språk
Norwegian