Braced resolutely against the elements, as the Barents Sea pummels the rocks in the background and a howling blizzard chips more divots into their craggy faces, the roughly 30 members of the Berlevåg Male Choir open Knut Erik Jensen's documentary Cool And Crazy in a triumphant march toward the camera. Citizens of a tiny fishing village on the Norwegian coast, within casting distance from the North Pole, they sing in a thunderous baritone that seems designed to hold sway with the impossibly brutal weather. Jensen hauls them outside in the middle of winter for the same reason Esther Williams was kept in the water: Inside, their patriotic and religious songs blur together with little distinction or excitement, but outdoors, they ring like an indomitable force of nature. Hailed in festival circles as the next Buena Vista Social Club, Cool And Crazy also volleys performance footage with small bits of portraiture. But the music isn't nearly as textured, and the subjects, while charming and high-spirited, are comparatively mundane. Part of the problem is that their biographies are more or less uniform: The average choir member is about 70, has been married to the same woman for more than half his life, and works (or worked) at a fishery that serves as the sole engine of the local economy. Music provides a pastime and forges a strong sense of community, but Jensen's haphazard domestic scenes do little to distinguish their personalities. Known primarily as a fiction filmmaker, he takes greater care in staging attractive tableaux for the songs, placing special emphasis on their weathered faces and the severe beauty of the landscape surrounding them. For this reason, Cool And Crazy works better when it discards the individual stories and looks at the group dynamic, which is inspiring and often poignant, especially since the Berlevåg choir seems destined to fade with the town's dimming fortunes. The film doesn't really come to life until its final third, when the men take a bus across the Russian border to a concert in Murmansk. For the first time, there's dissent in the ranks, as they take turns savaging their one Leninite for the drab tenements and industrial wreckage left behind by the collapse of communism. On the strength of traditional and regional songs, their rousing concert swells with pride for a better way of life, even if they may represent the last generations to enjoy it.