By Anees Aref.
An activist film that also works as a solid piece of entertainment.”
What would it be like to watch a pending natural disaster, only seeing it now, that is? That’s the feeling one gets watching The Burning Sea, a timely new Norwegian film directed by John Andreas Andersen about oil rigs collapsing off Norway’s coast, leading to massive spills that threaten the country and the entire region. The film feels like a documentary from the future, chronicling the dangers of continued drilling for fossil fuels and its damage to oceans and the surrounding ecosystem. It’s a sign of the times we live in that what used to be termed the “disaster” genre is now often called the “environmental thriller”, as The Burning Sea has been described. One wonders if a new term should be invented for the “pandemic” movie.
The film opens with an interesting prologue, where a veteran of Norway’s oil industry (played by Norwegian actor Bjorn Floberg) tells of the money and hazards of working in the field. “The country made money” he says, “…but it’s like driving a car. Drive too fast for too long and something bad is bound to happen…” We’re then introduced to Sofia (played by Kristine Kujath Thorp), a tech expert who along with her boyfriend Stian (Henrik Bjelland) work off one of a group of oil platforms in the North Sea. A platform has dramatically collapsed, and Sofia and her colleague Arthur (Rolf Kristian Larsen) are brought in by company executives to try and locate survivors. It turns out some massive tectonic shifts are happening below the sea, threatening hundreds of platforms and unleashing disastrous amounts of oil and gas into the surrounding ocean.
The Burning Sea makes all this environmental chaos seem very convincing. In a conversation with director John Andreas Andersen (insert link to interview?), he said the production was able to shoot on location in real Norwegian oil platform sites. This, along with expert visual effects, lends the film a very authentic feel, elevating the suspense when disaster strikes. Indeed, there are some very intense sequences when Sofia, Arthur, and Stian find themselves trapped inside a collapsed platform. It’s standard plot suspense, but the action is expertly staged and the actors are committed. Moreover, the film doesn’t waste too much time with forced character building. These are regular people involved in a potential real-world disaster, and the film gets down to the business of the story efficiently. Kristine Kujath Thorp is strong as Sofia, very resourceful and doing all the heroic dirty work for the guys here. Bjorn Floberg is another standout as one of the company executives overseeing the damage control. He has to make some tough decisions that seem heartless, but we understand the stakes involved for him and everyone else. Indeed, Andersen intelligently avoids making easy villains out of the corporate and political decision makers. Everybody here is convincingly human, dealing with crises that could be ripped right out of news headlines from around the world.
The Burning Sea is clearly a call to action about the climate crisis and the possible direction we’re heading in. The film closes on a message of ocean conservation, and it’s hard not to be alarmed at the scenario presented here. It’s an activist film that also works as a solid piece of entertainment, using many Hollywood genre staples in the service of urgent storytelling. Audiences, and politicians especially, would do well to watch this film.
Anees Aref is a writer on film, history, and politics based in the Los Angeles area who has published abroad as well as in the United States.
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