Oslo

A husband/wife team of Norwegian diplomats (Andrew Scott/Ruth Wilson) hosted secret back-channel negotiations between a small group of Israeli and Palestinian representatives that led to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. This adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play has a solid theatrical structure with lots of small scenes, each with a conflict that must be resolved before the next one. Since it’s all talk, it’s vital to have a strong cast and this group succeeds in creating convincingly committed characters. The play’s director, Bartlett Sher, is at the film’s helm and he manages to make the dialogue and disagreements involving. Considering the subject matter, it’s a fascinating peek behind the (somewhat fictionalized) scene, but more as a historical curiosity than a stirring drama.

(Mauro Lanari) With the birth of hermeneutic philosophy in the last century (Gadamer, not Schleiermacher), it was debated whether we were granted the opportunity to dialogue / bargain / negotiate / understand each other or if we were condemned to polemical conflict. "Oslo" could have been a great example of this, whereas it leaves such an issue in the background, basically just on the credits.

Plot builds on many innacuracies while inadvertently pushing for the dehumanization of one side at the expense of the other. It fails to push beyond shallow remarks and creates a remarkable detachment from reality.