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Volume 15, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 2042-7891
  • E-ISSN: 2042-7905

Abstract

This article examines how Joachim Trier’s film (2017) links the unconscious death drive to external environmental instability, in particular, the crises exacerbated by Arctic amplification. Through its hybrid deployment of horror-psychological thriller and its – such as the iceberg-like Oslo Opera House set piece, which conjoins an emblem of climate vulnerability with the death drive – the film dramatizes how ecological precarity and the unconscious are entwined. The article ultimately argues that Thelma’s initially destructive libidinal energy – manifesting in both environmental and interpersonal harm – is not eradicated but rechanneled towards provisional relationality. However, this transformation remains fraught: while Thelma appears to overcome the patriarchal control that determines her death drive, she risks reproducing colonial dynamics by psychically annexing her queer love interest, Anja. Analysing alongside the politics of green colonialism and Indigenous Sámi resistance to projects like Norway’s Fosen wind farm, the article traces both the promise and peril of a redirected drive, advancing the broader claim: while inherently linked to destruction, the death drive can become a site of relational possibility.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Fisher Center Faculty Research Fellowship at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS)
  • HWS’s Office of Academic and Faculty Affairs
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2026-03-13
2026-04-12

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/content/journals/10.1386/jsca_00134_1
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Channelling Arctic amplification in Joachim Trier’s Thelma
Journal of Scandinavian Cinema 15, 181 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/jsca_00134_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jsca_00134_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jsca_00134_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): climate change; death drive; environmental humanities; green colonialism; psychoanalysis; Sámi

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