‘Kelvin’: A Tormented Soul in a Remote, Treacherous Land

What a grand force of nature is Stellan Skarsgard, who came to international acclaim as the husband in “Breaking the Waves.� A big, husky man, Skarsgard, in the Lars von Trier film, expressed a lusty, uninhibited sweetness soured by tragedy. Now in Norwegian filmmaker Hans Petter Moland’s compelling “Zero Kelvin,� Skarsgard is again earthy and robust, but from the outset his Randbaek is a brutal, caustic man suffering from some terrible secret torment.

A Greenland fur-trapper of much experience, Randbaek is less than thrilled to meet his new partner, Larsen (Gard Eidsvold), a young Oslo poet with a contract to write a book about his experiences during the yearlong expedition. The third man with whom the trappers will be living in a hut in a snowy wasteland is Holm (Bjorn Sundquist), a bald, burly scientist of few but forceful words.

At heart, “Zero Kelvin,� adapted by Moland and Lars Bill Lundholm from a novel by Peter Tutein, is a classic clash of temperament and personality between two very different men. What the film accomplishes so admirably is to make these men so individual and their conflict so fresh that we’re kept involved from start to finish by a seamless blend of crisp, brisk writing, direction and acting.

From the outset, the film avoids cliches. Larsen is no namby-pamby pushover, but a remarkably self-possessed young man who doesn’t hesitate to stand up to Randbaek--and who has no trouble at all in fur-trapping. Randbaek, by the same token, is no mindless brute but the possessor of a savage intelligence. The key to their conflict is that Larsen has a girlfriend (Camilla Martens) whom he loves, an emotion Randbaek thunderingly insists does not exist; he speaks of sex in the crudest of terms. Randbaek is in fact starving for love and affection and friendship but is so full of rage he understandably puts off the others. The flash point is that Randbaek takes out that anger on the men’s sled dogs, insisting that Larsen is undermining their capacity to obey by treating them like pets.

In the intensifying hostility between Randbaek and Larsen, the poet is not entirely innocent. In his awkward, abashed way Randbaek tries to make amends to Larsen after an especially nasty brawl between them by preparing a festive Christmas celebration, only to have his efforts coolly dismissed by Larsen. But then this incident gives way to “Zero Kelvin’s� larger concern with the loss of innocence as a virtually inevitable part of the rites of passage. Again, it is amazing how effective “Zero Kelvin,� which is set in 1925, catches us up in what so easily could be an overly familiar struggle. There’s no question that it gains considerable impact from the icy grandeur of its setting, heightened by Terje Rypdal’s spare score. “Zero Kelvin� is as much a journey into an anguished soul as it is to a remote land.

It is playing in a double feature with the longer New Zealand version of Geoff Murphy’s 1983 “Utu,� a tense and riveting period drama about a Maori rebellion that plays like an American western. Anzac Wallace stars.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film has some violence, exceptionally crude and savage discussion of sex and repeated depictions of cruelty to animals.

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‘Zero Kelvin’

Stellan Skarsgard: Randbaek

Gard Eidsvold: Henrik Larsen

Bjorn Sundquist: Holm

Camilla Martens: Gertrude

A Kino International release of a Norsk Film AS production. Director Hans Petter Moland. Producer Bent Roignlien. Executive producer Esben Hoiland Carlsen. Screenplay by Lars Bill Lundholm & Moland; based on the novel “Larsen� by Peter Tutein. Cinematographer Philip Ogaard. Editor Einar Egeland. Costumes Bente Winther-Larsen. Music Terje Rypdal. Production designer Janusz Sosnowski. Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Nuart for one week, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.