Two girls find themselves locked in an Oslo public swimming hall and bond over school gossip, boys and dancing to the psychedelic sounds of Lindstrøm in Real Life Exp., an atmospheric slice of teen life from up-and-coming Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli. After unsuccessfully trying to exit the 1960s-designed pool, the two bathing-suit-clad stragglers, played by 17-year-old Emma Aars and 18-year-old Molly Bring Uddén, pass the idle time in increasingly liberated ways, ripping up exercise books and rocking out. A collaboration with Nordic musician Lindstrøm's label Smalltown Supersound, the film took eight hours to shoot, and its meditative feel pays homage to the late Harris Savides, the cinematographer to Gus Van Sant and Sofia Coppola who passed away last November. “Everything he shot had an easy pace, almost as if the camera wasn’t there,” says Borgli, who has made music videos for Casio Kids and Young Dreams. Most recently, the filmmaker won Best Scandinavian Music Video and a UK Music Video Award for his witty accompaniment to DJ Todd Terje’s “Inspector Norse”. For his next project, Borgli has set his eyes on a feature. “More and more, the characters in my music videos have started speaking,” he says. “It has become less about how I write a story for the song and more about how the song can fit my story.”
Lindstrøm’s latest single, “Vôs-sâkô-kv”, is due out tomorrow on vinyl and download.