Transnational Christmas in Mona J. Hoel’s ‘Dogme 95’ film Cabin Fever

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how Mona J. Hoel activates Christmas and the cabin – two mainstays of Norwegian identity – in her 2000 ‘Dogme 95’ film Når nettene blir lange/Cabin Fever in order to comment upon the increasingly complex and transnational nature of contemporary society, where people move and marry freely across international borders. The author argues that the movie functions as an allegory in which a precariously transnational family event can be read as a stand-in for the small nation of Norway, struggling to maintain its self-image and identity in a period of increasing globalization. The progression of the action in the film follows a pattern similar to that of Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen/The Celebration (1998) – a film that has also been read as a contemporary national allegory – but the substitution of Christmas for a birthday party and a cabin for a hotel directs attention to and questions a specifically Norwegian cultural identity.