[Film] The Giant (Jatten)

09 July 2017

“The Giant (Jatten)”---The O.P.E.N. (Singapore International Festival of Arts)

Release Year: 2016

Country: Sweden, Denmark

Director: Johannes Nyholm

Cast: Christian Andren, Johan Kylen, Anna Bjelkerud

Location I watched: The projector

Story from the festival program:

Rikard is an autistic and severely deformed man, who was separated from his mother at birth. Thirty years later, he is convinced that he will get her back if only he wins the Scandinavian Championship of boules (a version of lawn bowls). He tries to do the impossible with an unlikely ally, a 200-foot giant.

Petanque (“boules” in the above Story) is a game to compete how close you can toss or roll a steel ball to a small ball. This unspectacular sport is the center of “The Giant”. The protagonist, Rikard is suffering from many disabilities, but he aims to win the Scandinavian Championship of petanque. If he achieved the victory, he could report it to his mother, living separately due to her mental illness. She would be glad and might finally see him. That is Rikard’s goal and he has devoted himself to petanque for that. Petanque is everything in his life.

Now, under the unique situation, a typical sports drama unfolds. Conflicts with other team members, hard practice, reconciliation and the decisive competition --- petanque should have been an unspectacular sport, but its drama is quite hot. Not only Rikard, but other players are also eager to play petanque. But actually petanque does not seem to be a major sport in Scandinavia. Funnily, even the Scandinavian Championship of petanque has to share the venue with a beach volleyball competition. I think it is because both sports need sand grounds. The audience for the beach volleyball is much bigger than for petanque. The audience for petanque there is equal to the players. A little bit lame people who are devoting to such a plain sport fighting so enthusiastically are next to beach volleyball players in bikini. This championship situation is unique, and funny.

The film poster of “The Giant” shows a 200-foot giant. This giant is probably a kind of illusion or dream Rikard has. However, except for its illusionary images of the giant, this film pursues realistic scenes like Rikard’s daily life with other disabled folks in a nursing home, his mother’s disordered room (she is living in an apartment with nursing-care), the dull indoor ground of Rikard’s petanque club, and so on. Particularly, the meeting scene when the petanque club tried to remove Rikard from the team and Rikard’s birthday party scene at the nursing home look like a documentary film. As a contrast, the scenes when Rikard is daydreaming or during his epilepsy attack are fantastic. In there, the petanque balls become stars to compose a galaxy. A giant is walking grandly, striding over forests or hills. That giant could be Rikard’s unknown father or himself. The visual effects used do not look so expensive. But, they are quite effective and beautiful. Balancing between reality and fantasy, this sports drama about an unspectacular sport became a unique film with strange atmosphere like an old fairytale. A nostalgic tune of a harmonica played by Rikard remains in our ears. (10 August 2017)