Planet Ibsen: Moody, magical, and very honest

Apparently, women have been leaving their husbands for as long as there has been marriage. Unfortunately, no one told August Strindburg.

This is an excellent picture about the true story of the ego of August Strindburg, infamous playwright and typical chauvinist male. The film is told from the perspective of Strindburg's equally famous arch-rival, Henrik Ibsen- a very interesting choice of narration, because the movie itself is about a frustrated man who seems to desire attention in full. Funny? No. Fitting? Yes.

This film will make you torn between your feelings. It explains everyone's "side", so it's hard to formulate an opinion. I love that! It was nice to see a movie about how far a man will go to create his own world, and his own rules. You almost have to identify with Strindberg after watching. Not that he's everyman, but the film explains what happens when his wife gets a hold of a copy of Ibsens play "A Dolls House", and evolves in a way Strindberg is not pleased with. The rest of the film is an explanation of his resulting behavior.

This film was done in an extremely interesting and artistic way. The director of this film had just the right amount of vision to communicate this twisting and flowing drama into an entourage of different personalities that co-exist in the same room, but not necessarily in the same time.

It's not at all complicated to follow, which is good because of the subject of the film. The director kept it unbroken and timely, and the actors were so helpful in explaining what was going on with delivery and non-verbal communication (especially Steve Dumouchel) that you wont find yourself getting lost in the coolness. Gabriel Damon is so fun to watch as an overbearing husband, and Clint Howard's detail showed that he truly enjoyed himself.

I'm recommending this film to people who like movies, not just the subject matter. There's not one cuss word and absolutely no nudity, just a good story done well. (J. Branch)http://www.imdb.com/user/ur5488331/comments

Planet Ibsen: "It’s definitely BRILLIANT”

“…I’ve had so many people come up to me and say ‘Wow, what an incredible film (Planet Ibsen); this is the best film in the festival. I didn’t expect to like it so much but it’s just a really incredible film.’… I think it is an incredible film-festival film. It’s definitely brilliant.” ~Cevin Cathell, SBIFF Program Director Variety

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Planet Ibsen ENTERTAINMENT TODAY Review

5 Films

When I attended the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February, certain types of films caught my eye. I found myself in the audience for Mozart and the Whale, The West Wittering Affair, Shadowboxer, Planet Ibsen, and Believe in Me. Of course, I didn’t really just wander into those screenings – I put them on my schedule of festival happenings and made sure to see them. And you know what? I’m glad I did. All of these films explore, at some level, assumptions about gender in Western society.

Next is Planet Ibsen. This is a surreal take on gender issues quite specifically, based on Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play, A Doll’s House, which is considered to be the first stage production with a feminist slant on marriage. Director Jonathan Wyche creates a world of the mind to ponder marital power struggles, women’s awakening consciousness, and men’s dawning realizations. The images and the plot are all fantastical and vaguely historical, supposedly originating in the head of one of Ibsen’s real-life contemporaries, writer August Strindberg. But the issues and messages are absolutely contemporary and very real in their import. This is not classical realist cinema in any sense of the word. So it’s avant-garde not only in terms of the look and feel of the film, but in its positioning of gender dynamics as still requiring thoughtful analysis and remedial work to bring about true equality. Variety

Excerpt from Entertainment Today. See the Mach 3rd Edition for reviews on Mozart and the Whale, The West Wittering Affair, Shadowboxer, & Believe in Me.

Entertainment Today (March 3, 2006), by Madelyn Ritrosky

Planet Ibsen: "Provocatively strange..."

“Provocatively strange Planet Ibsen, Jonathan Wyche’s highly stylized play-within-a-nightmare fantasy about tensions between Scandinavian playwrights Ibsen and Strindberg." ~Josef Woodard, Santa Barbara Independent Variety

So, here's a film that deserves a look...Planet Ibsen

“So, here's a film that deserves a look...Planet Ibsen is about a tormented playwright who is forced to revisit his past while being trapped inside his archrival’s most famous play. Tre clever no? In Planet Ibsen, Strindberg believes he is trapped inside Ibsen’s A Dolls House and his only means of escape is to rewrite Ibsen’s play, in the attempt to revise his life. Out there? You bettya - and it's starring that underrated nugget of talent, Clint Howard - a BluntReview fave ~Emily Blunt, Blunt Review Variety

Planet Ibsen is an intriguing experiment, engaging at various levels: shot composition, editing, story, and theme.

“Planet Ibsen is an exploration into the realms of what-if and altered realities - to that other planet of surrealist exploration. Planet Ibsen is an intriguing experiment, engaging at various levels: shot composition, editing, story, and theme. But it's not about surrealism. At the levels of story and theme and in its formal construction, the film is concerned with self-examination and revelation, gender and power, representation and (non)realism, and historical or "period" stories as prisms for considering our own times. It feels like you're diving into something below the surface, through the looking glass, into cogitation on gender and on heterosexual relations and marriage in particular. Director Jonathan Wyche, in his first feature, wants the viewer to think, to connect images and ideas through association and abstraction rather than through continuity editing and traditional storytelling. There is, however, an overarching narrative trajectory - a character's interior journey and realizations - that will satisfy viewers who want some sort of storyline to follow.” ~Madelyn Ritrosky, Entertainment Magazine Variety

“Planet Ibsen, an eerie, modern thought pyschologically based and extremely creative..."

“Planet Ibsen, an eerie, modern thought pyschologically based and extremely creative version of 1800's Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House” ~Mike Takeuchi, Filmfestivals.com Variety

Far riskier choices...Tsotsi, Joyeux Noel, and Planet Ibsen

“One of our film selection criteria was to pick films …, far riskier choices, but choices that maximize the opportunity offered by the festival to see things that you might not otherwise get a chance to see. Some of our interchangeable passes ended up around the necks of people seeing Tsotsi, Joyeux Noel, and Planet Ibsen.” ~EdHat.com Variety

Planet Ibsen "....a historical fantasia."

“And with so many American indies rehashing the same old family dramas or quirky tales of teen angst, I had to take special note of this film (Planet Ibsen) , which is a historical fantasia about the rivalry between August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen.” ~Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker Magazine Variety

Planet Ibsen ".. low-budget film homage to Orson Welles' The Trial

“The film's called Planet Ibsen, it takes place in the mind of playwright August Strindberg, largely including schizophrenic nightmares of fellow playwright Henrik Ibsen (Clint Howard). It really seemed like a sort of low-budget film homage to Orson Welles' The Trial. It's always a good thing to see that there's another well-shot movie floating around, someone still knows they have to light their movie.” ~Rav, Ain’t It Cool News Variety