Given the movie’s title, “A Strange Course of Events,” (2013), nothing strange at all seems to happen in the first third of the movie. A 40 year old male protagonist is divorced, works at a clinic, and lovingly emails his daughter who is in the third grade. He goes running. He takes a nap. His nap is interrupted temporarily by a dog. He visits his father, his father introduces him to his girlfriend. They go out to dinner. The father chokes on a fish bone, but this is not overly dramatized, and by the time the wait staff come over to check on the slight disturbance, he has already been given the heimlich maneuver by his son and is restored.
Perhaps the first occurrence of an act of strangehood is over a third of the way into the movie. The protagonist’s father is enraged by difficulties surrounding his girlfriend’s computer, and rips the computer’s hardware apart. The usually smiling father’s outbreak comes as a surprise to the viewer, who usually views him as a happy-go-lucky smiler. More strangehoods happen within just a few minutes. The protagonist’s reaction to his father’s outbreak is to start jogging locally on streets near the incident in the middle of the day. Next, he slips on a fish in a fish market and an ambulance is called.
Do a series of strange events unfold from here? The street injury brings about a course of events in which, like many films with an indie feel, things “happen.” An unwelcome visitor makes an appearance. An outing takes place. A new friend is made. And a ceremony is unveiled.
While there is certainly a strange healing ceremony involving magical stones, a truly “strange course of events,” the movie’s English title, is not particularly fulfilled. However in its spirit, is guided the movie’s soundtrack. Deep, dark, at times less than subtle and thunderous sounds dramatize the protagonist’s limped walk. He uses his mobility – first jogging, then walking – as a way to cope with frustration and angst. His daughter accuses him of leaving her and her mother behind, and perhaps his physical mobility during times of plot strife mark a metaphor of his character’s proclivity to use literal motion as a way to cope with his problems. Perhaps this coping mechanism serves the protagonist more successfully than his father, who has an outbreak of anger in the middle of the movie, and is calmed only by the presence of a yoga instructor during her work hours.
One of the character’s motions at the end of the movie appears to be out of the frustration and angst earlier mentioned – but it is revealed that he is not walking away from any potential tension, but walking towards relief. The movie’s somber soundtrack halts as she makes her appearance.