Discoveries of a Marionette

A warm and humorous film growing from the entertaining and errant life of Alf Mørner. There has always been a distance between director Bjarte Mørner Tveit and his grandfather, the strong patriarch sea captain Alf Mørner. However, the gap between the generations is perhaps about to close when old Alf presents a strange gift to Bjarte; countless metal cans containing 8mm film from Alf's life and his journeys around the world. The films open a hidden universe of grandfather's past to Bjarte, and while looking at the films he discovers stories that had remained hidden for up to seventy years. But strings were attached to the seemingly generous gift and Bjarte soon has to embark on a demanding voyage of his own. DISCOVERIES OF A MARIONETTE is a poetic and peculiar documentary film. It alters between entertaining or heartbreaking personal episodes and philosophical reflections on eternal matters. Through the film Alf Mørner leads us on a weird and wonderful expedition through life and death, love and hate, over the sea and in the end: into eternity. Nothing less.

Learning Questions

1. How does this filmmaker bring old footage and photographs to life?
2. What impression do you get of the narrator’s grandfather? How would you describe him?
3. What did you find most interesting about this film?
4. Through stories of Alf Mørner, what can we learn about the narrator?

Submit Your Lesson Plan

Join The Discussion

Don't be shy, leave a comment below. Educators, students and parents can use this forum in a number of ways:
+ Start a classroom discussion
+ Tell us how you used this educational video for learning
+ Or, just leave a regular old comment on what you thought of the video