Having started on November 12th, the Film Society of Lincoln Center commemorates one hundred years of Nordic cinema with "A Luminious Century: Celebrating Norwegian Cinema," at the Walter Reade Theater. Despite some artistic dabbling in the medium, film was only taken up by its artists as a serious creative venue in the 1920s. As the decades passed, Norwegian filmmakers shifted their focus, from the rural in the '20s to the urban in the '30s, to the '50s when film was used as a means of showing the struggle filmmakers fought in the '40s under German occupation.

Pumping out a comparatively modest amount of 15 to 17 pictures a year, this retrospective illustrates just far the artform has come as a national expression.

Of the program's earliest selections, "Growth of the Soil" (1921), Knut Hamsun's Nobel prize-winning novel gets the silent treatment as Isak (Amund Rydland) cultivates an untouched piece of land after much toil and hardship with the help of his wife Inger (Karen Thalbitzer). A celebration of the working man and the dreamer who puts his dreams in his hands, Isak's work is threatened several times by the pettiness of other men, but the sweat that he has poured into the land is sufficient for him even throughout the worst of his travails. Isak becomes the epitome of the all-important blue collar worker in this enduring film which can be seen with accompaniment by composer Donald Sosin (who can also be seen at the Museum of the Moving Image's Laurel and Hardy retrospective).

In the Oscar-winning documentary "Kon-Tiki" (1950), exploration of the wilderness is yet again touched upon, this time through the story of anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl's famous expedition. The film is a powerful if not incomplete document of the explorer and his team as he takes his theory of early South American migration to Polynesia to the test, and sets off on a crude balsa-wood craft to prove that his theory of travel was indeed viable. The trip is one that for the most part focuses on the day-to-day activities of the crew, activities which are anything but mundane. While it admits to the faulty nature of its findings, it is a fine example of the importance of discovery for discovery's sake.

Director Edith Carlmar's final film, "The Wayward Girl," (1959) is a landmark if only for the discovery of Liv Ullman, the voluptuous and talented bombshell at the center of this tale of errant youth and sexuality. Scandalously candid for its time, Ullman plays the titular character whom young Anders (Atle Merton) attempts to rehabilitate with a retreat to an abandoned cabin in the woods. A sprawling microcosm of the clash between traditional and of changing moral values of the time, "Wayward Girl" is an engaging look at traditional roles, especially in the realm of the "adult" and the "immature."

A critically and financially successful harbinger of the war of the sexes, "Wives" (1975) tells the tale of three former schoolmates as they get together for a day of eschewing the responsibilities that have arisen from their marital and maternal roles. Influenced by John Cassavetes' "Faces," the film rises to the challenge of exploring what fulfillment for a woman can mean in a patriarchal society, with touches of humor that are as unsparing as the material the film tackles. The first of a series, "Wives" is more than just a feminist tale of unhappiness, and leaves ample of run for the viewer to decide exactly how the characters choose to cope with where their lives have taken them.

Arguably one of the best films of the retrospective, "Betrayal" (1981) focuses on young Kamilla (Nina Knapskog) as she watches her parents' relationship dissolve before her. Set in post-war Norway, Kamilla's father is a shoe shop owner who has collaborated with the Germans, and the profits from such a venture becomes the object of heated debate between the parents. An affecting portrait of a family torn apart by its inability to see what's right in front of it's face, "Betrayal" uses its post-war setting as a tremendous means of heightening the weight of the fractures in the protagonists' relationships.

"Orion's Belt" (1984) focuses on contemporary political issues, as happy-go-lucky Tom Jansen (Helge Jordal), and his fellow shipmates stumble upon more than they bargained for in Svalbard, a key strategic point between N.A.T.O and Warsaw Pact members, where an uneasy air of neutrality exists in the midst of the Cold War. While in search of a get-rich-quick scheme, the crew stumbles upon a Russian listening post, and from this intentionally unreal encounter, chases and political scheming ensues. The film's use of the surrounding forbidding landscape is one that fuels Tom's flight, and the story's theme of a land steeped in conflict but unwilling to acknowledge the severity that its idleness can have.

As daring as "Wayward Girl," "Ice Palace" (1987) is a look at the budding relationship between two prespubescent girls, Siss (Line Storesund) and Unn (Hilde Nyeggen Martinsen), whose attraction has created a palpable and literaly chilling ice structure as forbidding as it is enticing. When Unn goes missing after attempting to navigate the edifice, the promise that Siss makes to keep their attraction secret begins to take its toll, as the limtations of a small town in the grip of a seemingly relentless winter stifles Siss. A transfixing film, it is a treasure-trove of sexual tension which radiates from the story's masterfully constructed sense of confinement and terror.

Based on Henrik Ibsen's play, "An Enemy of the People" (2005) focuses on the skeletons in the closet of Michael Moore-esque Tomas Stockmann (Jorghen Langhelle). Directed by Erik Skjoldbjaerg--also the director of the film "Insomnia" that Christopher Nolan attempted to remake in 2002--this film follows Tomas, a celebrity nutritionist as he attempts to go beyond admonishing evil corporations and bring some good into the world by bottling his hometown's healthy spring water for mass consumption. When tests show that the water contains toxins that induce infertility, Stockmann wrestles with the notion of whether he became a celebrity for the power or because of the strength of his convictions. Beset by the effects of either ignoring or blowing the whistle on his endeavor, Stockmann is crushed beneath the weight of those observing him, from his family, to the locals in this powerhouse follow-up to his adaptation of "Prozac Nation."

Catch this fantastic program now running through November 29th and a full schedule can be found at http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/showing/norway.htm

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