172. ARMAND (2025) dir. Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel

ARMAND follows Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve), a single mother of the titular 6-year-old. She's called into Armand's school for a parent-teacher conference alongside Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) the parents of Armand's best friend, Jon.To say it's bad news is the most severe understatement. Jon has accused Armand of sexual assault, the violent and dehumanizing kind one would expect from someone with a high-schooler's understanding of sexuality.Elisabeth is expectedly blindsided, fiercely defending her son and questioning the intents, the facts, the biases of all involved. Sarah demands justice for her son and immediate action on the school's part. Anders wants what his wife wants.The school's de facto liaison, a junior teacher named Sunna (a sympathetic and highly pitied - the kind of pity derived from being someone sent first over the hill to sustain every rock, arrow, cannonball and nasty word - Thea Lambrechts Vaulen), is just desperately hoping a dialogue between the parents can inspire some concept of a plan.If you're looking for a movie wherein you can crack the code and solve the mystery, this movie isn't it. It's more preoccupied with the parties involved. Their personalities and histories clash and it's in the discovery of the interplays that the story really plays out. Writer/director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel drops these folks into a cavernous school with high ceilings, arched hallways. Every step echoes; secrets can be discovered regardless of whether the conspirators whisper. It's an environment haunted by the ghosts (maybe literal?) of tragedy, of the sinister and wounded natures that plague us all.Near the end, Elisabeth discusses with Sunna the manner in which best to understand and perceive other people. It's not myopic nor impressionistic, but rather somewhere in-between. It's an amorphous yet graceful stamp on a movie whose surreal darkness can be a tough ask on an audience. Humanity is fickle and imperfect. To pretend otherwise betrays the very nature of who we are. I can't say this is gonna land well with everybody who watches it, but it gave me some chewable food-for-thought.ARMAND is currently playing in select theaters nationwide (Shit, my AMC has a random 1:45pm showing of this thing and I just wanna be a fly on the wall to observe whose grandma's walking in to catch this fucker on a Tuesday.)---Follow The Movies on Instagram & LetterboxdThrow a couple dollars in the tip jar!