1001 grams: Film Review

Scene from the film ‘1001 grams’ showing delegates to the BIPM ‘Kilo Seminar’ holding their respective national kilograms.

It has been one year, 5 months and  23 days  since I posted a trailer for the Bent Hamer movie “1001 grams”. And this week I finally saw the film.

I had sought it out many times with no success, but a couple of weeks ago I managed to obtain a DVD encrypted as DVD Region 1. And so when the DVD arrived, I then needed to buy a new multi-region DVD player just to watch the film!

The story follows Marie, who works at the Norwegian National Measurement Institute, her relationship with her metrologist father, her trip to Paris with the Norwegian prototype of the kilogram, her adventures with the kilogram and her relationship with Pi, a scientist who is now a gardener.

Sadly I have to report that although I enjoyed the film, I was disappointed.

The whimsy and insightful observation that characterise Hamer’s films is certainly there. But whereas it is concentrated in the trailer, it is diluted in the film itself.

The film has many great features:

For this metrologist as least – it had many many laugh-out-loud moments. The casting and characterisation (caricaturisation?) of the delegates to the BIPM meeting (i.e. people like me and my colleagues) is shockingly perfect; the scene in which the camera fleetingly captures two delegates asleep in a seminar is also true to life.

The metrologist’s obsession with minutiae and attention to detail is well-captured, both in Marie’s day-to-day work calibrating ski-slopes and petrol pumps – and in relationship to the kilogram. The moment that the delegates peer in to see the ‘Mother of all kilograms’ is exquisite.

And the cinematography is beautiful. The filming of the metrological artefacts and activities is delightful, and the depiction of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) is charming.

And I have to admit that tears did fill my eyes at the point where the meaning of the film’s title is revealed.

But overall I felt the film was just a little light on content, in both the storyline and dialogue. This may be because I lack Hamer’s Norwegian perspective. Or perhaps silence is a bigger part of personal interactions between Norwegians than it is between English people.

The lingering shots at the start and end of scenes that establish a sense of continuing stillness can eventually become irksome for the non-auteur. After a while I got the sense that these were simply padding to get the film past the 90 minute mark.

But overall, I do not regret the £62 I spent to see the film!

Back in 2014 I wrote:

Bent Hamer’s films about IKEA researchers and retired railwaymen were not really about IKEA researchers or retired railwaymen. And I am sure this film is not really about the kilogram.

It is probably about the same thing that every other Bent Hamer film is about: the weirdness of other people’s ‘normal’ lives, and by implication, the weirdness of our own lives. And how important it is to nonetheless grab whatever happiness we can from the passing moments.

I was right.

You can catch a more detailed review with spoilers here

 

Bent Hamer and the Kilogram

Tonight I find myself a thousand miles from home in a hotel in Espoo, on the outskirts of Helsinki. Outside it is raining and the temperature is just 10 °C.

I am here to discuss with colleagues from around Europe some of the minutiae associated with a new definition of the units of temperature: the kelvin and the degree Celsius.

You really don’t want to know the details: we worry about them so that you don’t have to. 🙂

And the day is auspicious. Thursday 25th September marks the 125th anniversary of the adoption of the kilogram as the international standard of mass. You can read NPL’s commentary on the anniversary here, And there is a new film release ‘about metrology’

The movie at the top of the page is a trailer for a film by Bent Hamer which appears to use the kilogram as a metaphor for… well I haven’t seen the movie yet.

But the mere existence of the movie does indicate that the ‘kilogram problem’ has entered popular culture – at least to some limited extent – and that is >fantastic<.

My wife and I have admired Bent Hamer’s previous films and sought them out at out-of-the-way cinemas. And we shall probably have to do the same with this one.

Bent Hamer’s films about IKEA researchers and retired railwaymen were not really about IKEA researchers or retired railwaymen. And I am sure this film is not really about the kilogram.

It is probably about the same thing that every other Bent Hamer film is about: the weirdness of other people’s ‘normal’ lives, and by implication, the weirdness of our own lives. And how important it is to nonetheless grab whatever happiness we can from the passing moments.

But I am filled with excitement at the prospect of this film. Parts of it are definitely shot at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) which is a thrill for us ‘insiders’ to see.

And he has certainly caught something of the obsessive personality disorder that  – if not actually required – tends to accompany an interest in metrology.

I suspect that Hamer’s fondness for humanity would probably lead him to sympathise with a statement such as

Man is measure of all things 

And if I met him I would probably have to disagree.

The fact that I can type this article on a computer in Finland and have it appear on a server hosted in the United States, and be viewed wherever you are viewing this, rests on agreed measurement standards that are not amenable to different people’s opinions.

And the whole purpose of almost everything I do in my work – including this meeting – is to move beyond situations where correct answers are ‘a matter of opinion’.

But nonetheless, to see metrology dramatised in this way brings a smile to my face, and yields a frisson of simple pleasure.

I can’t wait for ‘1001 kelvin’.