An enchanting visual experience from Danish director Annika Berg, Team Hurricane (2017) combines elements of arcade-like images, documentary type home videos and Danish pop culture and comes to reinvent the narrative youth drama. For all its flamboyance and boldness, it hits surprisingly accurate in characterizing youth. Yet that seems to be the extent of it. About eight young women who meet at a youth club, the undeveloped writing leads to loose narratives that would be better for a music video than an hour and a half long film.
Written and directed by Annika Berg, Team Hurricane marks her first feature film following her award winning short film, Sia. In a documentary-style, it provides glimpses into the lives of eight young women who are friends and their attempt in navigating adolescence. Essentially a film that is not so much driven by plot, it’s rather an attempt to capture the vulnerability and identity crises these characters face. Through use of cinematic scenes which seem to serve no purpose but to convey the emotional turbulence and inner identities of these characters audiences glimpse the dilemmas of sexuality to insecurity. As Berg stated herself it is “Basically, a love letter to my teenager within – and a reminder to myself, as well as every other former and present teen, to love and nurture the energy and vulnerability that’s prominent at that age.”
The performances by upcoming actors, all of whom are teenagers that are just as interesting as their characters on screen (see – https://i-d.vice.com/en_au/article/599vv8/meet-the-cast-of-team-hurricane-your-new-favourite-punk-rock-chick-flick), helped to create a raw and natural atmosphere that gave the film authenticity. Considering its abstract nature, without the believable performances by these young actresses and accurate directing, the film could have spiralled into a meaningless mess. In particular, Eja Penelope Roepstorff stood out and maintained a captivating presence throughout the film that seemed to fill the screen. Despite the fact the writing lacked depth and characters seemed one-dimensional, the actors worked well with the material.
The loose perhaps even non-existent narrative, despite overflowing with creativity, ultimately let the film down. Team Hurricane is an extension of Berg’s emergent style of abstract and enigmatic shots that represent internal crises and can be seen in glimpses throughout her previous film Sia but in contrast to the former film, she rejects the narrative approach to a greater extent. By doing so, she loses a sense of purpose and creates an agitated and restless work that seems irrelevant at times. Perhaps I would have loved if the film focused on developing these characters and providing more insight into their lives rather than spreading them so thin. At times, it seems as if Berg is cleverly building them up, alive and with a message yet she does not do enough of this and thus her characters and their stories are forgettable. The only aspect of Team Hurricane that resounds is that one shot of red hair that shockingly contrasts with dark green and the Danish punk rock tracks that underscore the entire film.
Nonetheless the film is innovative, featuring a variety of carefully thought out and unique shots that reflect attention and invented filmmaking. Neon-green substitutes, home videos edited in a glitchy and frenzied pattern, animated segments, tonally beautiful images of flowers and then highly saturated and irregularly composed shots. It definitely succeeds in creating an emotional response from audiences rather than the typical clinical approach on depression, sexuality and loneliness. Similarly Berg builds up her characters in the same bizarre way – they are eccentric yet identifiable, both outcasts yet ordinary at the same time. However, sadly, this did not remain consistent and overexposed shots with distracting white skies and lack of tonal depth apart from various shades of grey seemed to dominate all scenes filmed outside. Simply put, the film was not uniform in its attention to detail and consistent quality.
Overall, an experimental film, Team Hurricane lives up to its name. It’s charged with energy and depicts the sometimes difficult and harsh realities of becoming an adult. It’s interesting and pushes boundaries and for that I love it but ultimately the quest to be artsy and innovative came at the cost of thought-out narrative with substance.
Team Hurricane screened at the Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney.