How much does a life weigh? Its triumphs, its disappointments? Or death? How heavy is dying? Which is different from asking how much a human body weighs in either life or death but, rather, the life or death, itself? Maybe asked another way, “What is the measure of a man?” Of his soul? Not sure? Me neither. But all entirely intriguing questions at the heart of Norwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer’s 2014 film, 1001 Grams.
When the film opens we meet Marie (Ane Dahl Torp), a scientist working at Norway’s Institute of Weights and Measures. Soon after we meet Ernst (Stein Winge), also a scientist working at the same Institute and Marie’s father. He’s eminent in his field and beloved by his daughter. Marie and Ernst spend their days focused on studying mass and density with a particular reverence for the kilogram, the unit of measure world-wide against which all other weights and measures are compared. Marie’s days appear routine and uneventful but altogether fragile. She drives a wildly impractical electric car and has few friends. With a failed marriage in her recent past, Marie passes most of her free time either with her father at the family farm or home alone drinking wine while wistfully staring off into space. She seems the epitome of melancholy.
Just before an important seminar in Paris, Ernst has a heart attack and is unable to transport the Norwegian national mass prototype to the meeting as has long been his practice. Marie is asked to go instead, and she agrees. This is where things get interesting.
Hamer’s film is many things but obtuse is not one of them. The story conceit of a scientist who studies the weight of matter as a metaphor for the weighing of one’s life is hardly subtle, but it is, nonetheless, provocative. At one point, early on, Ernst says to Marie, “Life’s heaviest burden is having nothing to carry.” And throughout the rest of the film, we watch as Marie wrestles with this notion. We witness her reflection and stock-taking and sense her emerging yearning for more. More weight. More depth. More aliveness. “It’s about putting your life in the balance. Weighing things in the end,” Ernst notes. And while the journey of the human experience will vary greatly from person to person, this truth – that life must end – is universal to everyone. Which may lead us to wonder, “What are we called to do between now and then?” When it’s all said and done, what will have given our lives shape and weight and meaning?
This is a film that goes straight to the heart of the matter with many moments of offbeat humor and sweeping landscapes of the Norwegian countryside interspersed throughout. An absolute must-see during your next existential crisis. 😉 It’s available now on Netflix, Amazon and iTunes.