Dag Johan Haugerud’s thought-provoking Love encourages us to expand our perceptions, and to realize that love and intimacy can manifest in many different and unexpected ways.
Dag Johan Haugerud’s Norwegian feature Kjærlighet (Love) explores themes of intimacy, desire, and the balance between personal aspirations and social norms. This film is the second part of Haugerud’s trilogy, following Sex, which premiered at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.
There are no usual relationship templates here, where there are clearly defined roles or standard love dramas played out. Haugerud creates a space where each artistic element demonstrates what it means to love, to be loved, and to find one’s place in a world where the framework of relationships is becoming increasingly blurred and alternative.
The protagonist, Marianne (Andrea Braein Hovig), is a successful physician, urologist, and heterosexual woman. She lives in a rational world of medical diagnoses and strict social frameworks, as is typical of the profession. Then she encounters Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen), her gay colleague and nurse, a man who leads a lifestyle completely opposite to hers. His relationship with the world is characterized by ease and freedom: he is looking for dates via Grindr (a dating app), has sex on the ferry, socializes with men, and for him, this is not something extraordinary but completely in line with his ideas of life.
One day, Marianne meets her colleague Tor on a ferry by chance. The conversation takes an unusual turn and confronts the medical professionals, highlighting their opposing worldviews. Tor talks about his life, his chance encounters with men, and how he views the world through the lens of sexual freedom. Marianne is perplexed by his sexual ‘boundaries,’ and at the same time, Tor’s stories about his private life make her interested in trying to look at her life differently.
Haugerud masterfully operates the life views of the two characters: simultaneously with Marianne’s storyline develops the plot branch of Tor, who, despite his outward lightness, also begins to reconsider his views on life and relationships. His encounter with Bjorn (Lars Jacob Holm), a man he met by chance on the ferry on his way home, opens him up to a new facet of interaction—an emotional intimacy that he had previously avoided. This plot serves as a counterbalance to Marianne’s experimentation with Tinder and attempts to understand what an uncommitted relationship means to her.
However, what makes the film’s plot special and ambiguous is that the director does not resort to simplistic solutions and avoids unambiguous conclusions. Haugerud does not give clear answers, nor does he judge his characters. He offers food for thought, emphasizing ambiguity and the permissibility of this ambiguity. He invites us to reflect on how we interact with others and how much our understanding of love and intimacy depends on the social context in which we find ourselves.
The film makes an important point: being honest with ourselves and those around us is a difficult task. But it is even harder to realize that no form of love or sexuality is right or wrong. In this film, as in life, there is room for many different stories and experiences, and each is valuable in its own way.
Kjærlighet encourages us to expand our perceptions, to go deeper into understanding, and to realize that love and intimacy can manifest in many different and unexpected ways.
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