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The feature directorial debut of Halfdan Olav Ullmann Tøndel, notably the grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, “Armand” provides the actress with another showcase for her uniquely arresting presence but within the body of a chilly psychodrama that, set entirely across one suffocatingly hot afternoon at an empty elementary school, is turning its screws on her from the start.

“Armand” is a claustrophobic and often slippery drama... Even as some of the film can feel slightly overstretched, it still casts a beautifully beguiling spell. When it embraces some more surreal flourishes, the emotional foundation that Tøndel and Reinsve have laid ensures this all mostly lands.

Some may find themselves straining to find artistic traces here of the work of Ullmann Tondel’s grandparents, Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann, but millennial-generation Ullmann Tondel’s directing style feels more of a piece with contemporary Nordic cinema, with its flights of fancy and quirky humor, than the high style of his progenitors. His screenwriting here, however, feels like it’s lost its way when it tries to tidy everything up in the final scene, even if the staging strains to maintain a sense of mystery by drowning out the dialogue with thrashing rain.

Shot empathetically and on beautiful 16mm, Armand is a tribute to the powerhouse female characters of Bergman and Cassavetes: those who dance while the world falls apart around them.

“Armand” has an interesting premise (a parent being grilled about her son’s behavior as a vehicle for an exploration of social values). But the movie, while elegantly photographed, is mostly a shambles. It keeps throwing things at you in an oblique and random way, and it’s constructed like a puzzle with no solution.

[T]he director’s clear and visible talent occasionally gets in his own way, with flourishes like an intrusive musical number that don’t quite gel with the bigger picture. Taken on their own, however, they are proof of a keen eye for visual storytelling that shows intriguing promise in the context of new Nordic talent, especially as he appears uninterested in aping the style of his illustrious grandparents and determined to carve out his own path instead.

Tøndel proves a master at creating discomfort for both his characters and his audience. The dryness of the procedural scenes, even if lit in cold blues or shot in near black and white, clashes with the more abstract sequences though, which makes Armand a hard film to pin down and leaves a slightly unsatisfactory aftertaste for what has been a strong and confident debut.

Instinctive stress responses and emotional discrepancies have rarely been captured this detailed and true-to-life on film... While the gradual mood shift in Armand may not resonate with all viewers, the film’s acknowledgment of the complex emotions that accompany personal crises, coupled with its emphatic performances, make it a marvellous addition to the recent emergence of classroom drama.

Armand begins on a blank page that gradually comes alive in vivid color.

He is the grandson of Scandinavian cinema royalty, Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, so it is perhaps to be expected that some of the family tradition of fearless cinematic soul-exploring has rubbed off on him; that apart, Ullmann Tøndel proves that he has his own individual voice in a film that sweeps from microdrama concentration to ferociously expressionistic intensity.

“Armand,” in its perplexing conclusion, gets a little too lost in its own soup of ideas, staring a bit too long at the proverbial wallpaper as the camera seems to crawl from one revelation to the next... “Armand” [is] just as much a feat of physical choreography as emotional.

Considering the entire film takes place in the confines of the school building, it’s a testament to Tøndel’s direction and Reinsve’s enthralling performance that the film avoids feeling claustrophobic.