Norway has made its first disaster movie

[nineveh_uk]

Bølgen (The Wave) involves - you guessed it - a giant wave/inland tsunami that happens when half a mountain slides off into the fjord. It is based on a real place, under a real threat, and on real incidents of this type in the twentieth century. The actual event isn’t implausible. There’s a BBC clip of an interview here with a couple of sailors

Comments

[ylla]

I am distracted from your sensible point by 'the city of Geiranger'. Even by Norwegian standards...!

[nineveh_uk]

According to Wikipedia, Geiranger has a population of 250...

[ylla]

Might make it easier to save them all in 10 minutes, then.

[nineveh_uk]

Couple of supermarket trolleys for the young or infirm and you're sorted.

[biascut]

Yes, it would be fascinating to see a disaster plot that did "realistic human drama", "engineering" and "logistics challenges" seriously instead of "Will A Man save His Family? Yes. Phew!"

I was on a train once not long after the East Midlands floods about five years ago, listening to an incredibly annoying man tell someone all about how poor the emergency planning had been for a wheelchair user like him, in huge detail, at length. He was both a) right and b) incredibly annoying, and I thought at the time what very interesting stories there must have been as you bundle several hundred people into a sports hall and figure out what to do with them.

[nineveh_uk]

I strive in my daily life not to come across as someone that people supposed to help me would be tempted to leave to drown ;-)

Errors or unforeseen things going wrong with the disaster plan would be fine in my desired film, but there is just so much territory that could be explored outside the usual "extreme peril, heroic strength, everything fine", but people don't. Though I did enjoy Force Majeure about a man who fails to save his family from a (false) threat and then can't admit to it.

[azdak]

Hmmm, I wrote a short story for my Swedish course about the Norwegians building a huge wall across Oslo Fjord in order to save Oslo from a monster wave - I wonder if I could claim that the film plagiarised my idea? Of course, in my version the whole planet ended up covered in water with a few surviving cities surrounded by really REALLY tall walls, but hey, it has a fjord and a big wave in it.

10 minutes to react makes it sound as if it might be a very short film...

[nineveh_uk]

You should sue! They only didn't pinch your whole idea because the genius was too great to be contained in a single film and they're waiting for the sequel.

I think the film contains a certain amount of before-and-after as well :-) Lots of mountain scenery, followed by water sloshing about. I've just found this different trailer, which shows footage of the aftermath of a historical incident.

[wellinghall]

Whatever-is-the-town-on Heimaey sprayed water onto lava to stop it spreading over the rest of the town; and ended up with a more sheltered harbour. It was an almost-perfect disaster, although one person did lose their life; a drug addict who stayed behind to ransack the pharmacy.

(This may have been the same pharmacy where the staff, forty years later, had excellent English, but did not understand "antihistamine"; which led to confused explanations and mimes until they got the message).

[azdak]

"antihistamine"; which led to confused explanations and mimes

Customer: Buzz buzz ...mimes sting... Ow! .... indicates big toe swelling... gobbles pill... toe shrinks....

The Pharmacist shrugs

Customer: Atishoo atisshoo! Rubs eyes Atishoo! Gobbles pill.

Pharmacist: Oh, andhistamín töflur!

[littlered2]

I would very much like to watch your film. Seeing people being competent is always enjoyable, and the logistics of a disaster plan would be fascinating!

[nineveh_uk]

I wouldn't even mind a film about incompetent people as long as that was what it was about. A film about how Vesuvius hots up again, the city tries to prepare, but the task is mammoth and there's a limit to what you can do anyway, and it's going to be very grim? Fine! Just not "Naples is totally unprepared, but don't worry! Maverick scientist Marco will get his cute daughter to safety."

[sonetka]

This is why I liked Gravity so much, and am looking forward to The Martian. Nature is dramatic and terrifying enough without having to throw in cartoonish human villains, immense stupidity on the part of the protagonists, or annoying moppets who are ultimately impossible to harm. OK, Gravity does have the extraneous subplot about her daughter, but it's not about rescuing her before the oxygen runs out, so not really the same thing.