Susanne Bier's In a Better World, which won the Oscar this past year for Best Foreign Film (over the far superior Dogtooth), is about bullying and facing bullies head-on. It is far from a subtle film, generally clobbering you to death with parallels, symbols and important meanings of small gestures. There is no way to watch this movie and not understand exactly what Bier is trying to get you to understand. This makes for a dull viewing experience; I'd much rather watch something and have my own journey deciphering it rather than having my hand held through the narrative.
Anton is a doctor in Africa for Doctors without Borders (or some NGO just like that). He works in a very poor village where people not only suffer from typical diseases like malaria and infections, but are also being beaten and cut up by a local warlord who terrorizes them. Anton's family back in Denmark is hanging on by a thread. He and his wife are separated and about to get a divorce and their early-teen son Elias is constantly the target of classmates at school for being fat (and partly Swedish... Danish kids can be so cruel!). If you didn't understand the connection, both Anton and Elias deal with bullies in their daily lives.
Elias meets Christian, a transfer student who has been living in England for several years with his parents. His mother just died and he and his father have moved back to the family estate to regroup. Clearly Christian is emotionally affected by his mom's death, and he doesn't like that Elias is the butt of classmates' jokes. The two become friends when Christian violently defends Elias. This sets the tone of their relationship: loyalty, but at a price.
Bier might have more White European guilt than any other director working today. One of her last films, After the Wedding from 2007, was about a Danish man trying to split his life between a swank Copenhagen family and his job as an orphanage director in India. I guess it's nice that she makes movies about sad, poor people who are not as well off as Euros, but her back-and-forth style in this film and that earlier one is a bit tedious and uninspired. I'm smart enough to understand that a white doctor in Africa or India is probably seeing things that he wouldn't see back home where he's from, I don't really need him to sit around contemplating how different the worlds are.
There is a very nice moral dilemma moment when Anton has to decided if he should keep his doctor's ethics and help save the life of the warlord, which would in turn let the evil man live to hurt and kill other villagers, or if he should let him die, playing God and saving more people down the line. This is a sorta fun moral game that one can think about for hours and hours. What are the limits of ethics and morals? Is it ethical to let one man die so you can let hundreds others live? This should really be the core of the film, but it's really just a chapter in a greater story. I think this is a mistake in the script (by Anders Thomas Jensen).
Aside from the pain of seeing people starving and sick in Africa, this is not a very difficult movie. It's nicely shot and well acted, but it's directed more like an after-school special than an Oscar winner. There is nothing particularly challenging and generally the Euros live to buy Ikea another day. The Africans are basically forgotten about by the end, which is a strange twist on this holier-than-thou tale. Interesting....
Stars: 2 of 4
Showing posts with label Danish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danish. Show all posts
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Friday, February 5, 2010
Terribly Happy (Friday, February 5, 2010) (10)
This film is a Danish western, set in the western part of Denmark. It is a quite brilliant modern story that makes clever references to classic Westerns of Anthony Mann, John Ford and Howard Hawks. It is clearly visually inspired by David Lynch and the Coen Brothers, but has its own interesting style that makes it appear to be totally fresh and original.
Robert is a big city cop who is being disciplined after a big screw up. He's sent to a godforsaken town at the edge or civilization to become the new sheriff. This unusual town has only a few dozen residents, a doctor, a grocer, a pastor, a hair dresser and, of course, a bar. All of these people are dominated by Jorgen, the town tough who wears a cowboy hat, rules with an iron fist (almost literally) and takes care of people who get out of line. The fate of most who cross him is the bog outside of town where people can be disappeared in the mud without any evidence.
As Robert learns his way around and learns the politics of unusual town, he meets Ingerlise, Jorgen's wife and live-in punching bag. She's frustrated with her life and interested by Robert and seeks help from him for her situation. Little does he know that trying to help this sad woman will lead him deeper in the madness of this town, where everyone knows everyone's business and knows the rules that govern the place.
Writer/director Henrik Ruben Genz does a wonderful job of weaving a story that's familiar enough to recognize classic western threads (like the new sheriff in town meeting the old thug or the town doc who knows everyone's secrets but can't do anything about it, or the complicity of the townsfolk in the misery of others who sit back and judge from afar) but makes them contemporary enough to make them interesting. He uses a wonderful style with mostly static shots, beautifully filled up frames and amazing color to make what seems like a bleak setting come alive. The townspeople are always sweaty (and filthy) despite the bitter cold outside.
The photography by Jorgen Johansson looks a lot like the work that Roger Deakins has done for the Coen brothers, particularly for films like A Serious Man and Fargo; the music by Kaare Bjerko is a simple minimalist guitar and feels a lot like music Carter Burwell has written for them as well. Overall the style is gentle and peaveful, which belies the grime and violence the is at the heart of the town.
Jakob Cedergren is wonderful as Robert and is a perfect proxy for us. He's clearly a trouble man trying to escape his past - as much he's being sent to this place as punishment. He seems to have a good heart and is always doing things by the book (and even saying exactly that as he does those things). He's as mystified by the people and things he sees as we are and he responds in mostly sensible ways the way we might respond in a similar situation.
Of course the problem is that doing things by the police book is not the same thing as doing things by the book according to this town and these people. Henry Fonda's Wyatt Earp from My Darling Clementine or Clint Eastwood's Stranger in High Plains Drifter come to mind as we see Robert, an outsider, come to put some sense in this town that doesn't really want him.
Stars: 3.5 of 4
Robert is a big city cop who is being disciplined after a big screw up. He's sent to a godforsaken town at the edge or civilization to become the new sheriff. This unusual town has only a few dozen residents, a doctor, a grocer, a pastor, a hair dresser and, of course, a bar. All of these people are dominated by Jorgen, the town tough who wears a cowboy hat, rules with an iron fist (almost literally) and takes care of people who get out of line. The fate of most who cross him is the bog outside of town where people can be disappeared in the mud without any evidence.
As Robert learns his way around and learns the politics of unusual town, he meets Ingerlise, Jorgen's wife and live-in punching bag. She's frustrated with her life and interested by Robert and seeks help from him for her situation. Little does he know that trying to help this sad woman will lead him deeper in the madness of this town, where everyone knows everyone's business and knows the rules that govern the place.
Writer/director Henrik Ruben Genz does a wonderful job of weaving a story that's familiar enough to recognize classic western threads (like the new sheriff in town meeting the old thug or the town doc who knows everyone's secrets but can't do anything about it, or the complicity of the townsfolk in the misery of others who sit back and judge from afar) but makes them contemporary enough to make them interesting. He uses a wonderful style with mostly static shots, beautifully filled up frames and amazing color to make what seems like a bleak setting come alive. The townspeople are always sweaty (and filthy) despite the bitter cold outside.
The photography by Jorgen Johansson looks a lot like the work that Roger Deakins has done for the Coen brothers, particularly for films like A Serious Man and Fargo; the music by Kaare Bjerko is a simple minimalist guitar and feels a lot like music Carter Burwell has written for them as well. Overall the style is gentle and peaveful, which belies the grime and violence the is at the heart of the town.
Jakob Cedergren is wonderful as Robert and is a perfect proxy for us. He's clearly a trouble man trying to escape his past - as much he's being sent to this place as punishment. He seems to have a good heart and is always doing things by the book (and even saying exactly that as he does those things). He's as mystified by the people and things he sees as we are and he responds in mostly sensible ways the way we might respond in a similar situation.
Of course the problem is that doing things by the police book is not the same thing as doing things by the book according to this town and these people. Henry Fonda's Wyatt Earp from My Darling Clementine or Clint Eastwood's Stranger in High Plains Drifter come to mind as we see Robert, an outsider, come to put some sense in this town that doesn't really want him.
Stars: 3.5 of 4
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
