The Norwegian radio documentary "If it be your will" by Kari Hesthamar

The Norwegian radio journalist Kari Hesthamar travels to Motreal and meets Leonard Cohen in the documentary "If it be your will". She wants him to play old songs from the 60s and tell about his romance with the Norwegian Marianne. Cohen, who is over 70 years old, does not really want to remember. He plays a humble older man who has moved on in life. The phone rings, he daughter comes by with her dogs. Cohen will cook Shabbat dinner for his friends and family. He opens a bottle of wine. Meanwhile, he strums his guitar and tries to remember. This is how Hesthamar plays the beginning of her previous program So long, Marianne (which won the Prix Europa in 2006), where Marianne talks about her meeting with Leonard Cohen 45 years ago. About how Cohen stood in the back light in the doorway of a shop on the Greek island of Hydra.

And slowly, Cohen begins to remember. A hotel in Piraeus. A taxi ride. A Greek beach. The radio documentary takes on a life of its own. It comes down to Cohen explaining why he drank so much when he toured in the 1990s. What made him enter a monastery. What drove him to write and the circumstances that made him start singing. Cohen talks about men and women with an obviousness that feels disarming.

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