BROTHERS (Aslaug Holm, Norway). 102 minutes. Rating: NN
When her two sons were small, Norwegian filmmaker Aslaug Holm decided she would film them as much as possible – accompanying them when they went out to play, when their father coached them at football, when they started school. She shot for eight years.
The resulting Brothers is being marketed as a real-life version of Boyhood, but that just demonstrates how much work Richard Linklater did to make sure his film had a shape and a story.
If Holm had a larger purpose in mind when she started filming, there’s no sense of it in the finished project. Brothers has undeniable impact when it momentarily juxtaposes the younger Markus and Lukas against their older selves – a true-life special effect Linklater never attempted – but most of it just feels shapeless and self-indulgent, as though we’re trapped in the theatre with someone’s home movies.
Apr 29, 6:45 pm, TIFF 4 Apr 30, 1 pm, Scotiabank 3 May 6, 4 pm, Scotiabank 13
