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Hævnen (2010)
Revenge, forgiveness, realities and a solid film
This film delves into the depth of emotion without becoming over dramatic, and though the film parallels Bier's other film After the Wedding, it portrays these emotions with less drama and more poignant realism. Everyone is familiar with the darker workings of childhood social groups and how they can become either dangerous or beneficial, and in this case a complex interplay of both. There were few scenes in the film that made decisions look easy, which, in addition to the filming style, created a lot of realism in the film. Though some say the moral stories aren't new, the way the children are confronted with adult issues make a much more multifaceted situation. The main moral question of revenge versus forgiveness
Bier's Dogma reminiscent techniques and her use of parallel stories make for a realistic view of these two families interacting. Interacting is definitely an understatement; in classic Bier style, emotions intensify as the plot moves on. She deals with serious issues and negative affect, which is both brave and hard to watch. Though troubling to experience, the story was powerful enough to make viewers consider their own lives. While not everyone's experiences are to the extreme as in In a Better World, the basic situations are relatable to almost everyone. With her Dogma 95 reminiscent style, the filmmaking itself relates a realistic tone; the usually hand-held camera and shots of characters' faces full on make the film feel more like the viewer is seeing something real that happened.
The gruesome, violent and shocking scenes, to me, did not feel excessive. It was clear that the director aimed to portray real life horrors, not shock audiences in the way of a horror movie. The views of the wounds inflicted on the Africans were shudder-worthy, but I know there are realities like that in life and those people were lucky to see a skilled doctor. The violent beating of the bully at the school with the bike pump was cringe inducing and realistic enough to be truly uncomfortable to watch, which has a Dogma like feel. It is awful to watch, but there is some consolation in the knowledge that the bully won't bother them again. The way Christian took the revenge too far in his attempt to assert his power definitely foreshadowed his actions later in the plot.
The worlds of Africa and Denmark shown parallel to one another to emphasize the universality of the big questions Bier asks of her audience. When is revenge just, and when is it taken too far? The juxtaposition of the doctor treating a man guilty of atrocious crimes and a young boy willing to blow up a van to revenge his friend's dad after getting slapped around by Lars is quite striking. One can somewhat understand the doctor's decision to protect all life until the man starts making terrible comments about the dead girl, so when he turns the man over to the furious community, it feels as though justice has finally come to such a man. After this is shown and Christian convinces Elias to make a bomb, the horror of the situation is obvious. When Elias almost dies to save innocent people, the clarity of the bad decisions is crystal clear and the viewer just hopes that everyone lives long enough to forgive and move on. The happy ending felt a tiny bit forced, but in the same breath I will say that if the film ended with the death of a child, it would be needlessly depressing. She makes her points clear without putting the audience though emotional trauma.
The theme outside revenge was the father-son relationship. One relationship is happy overall, the father is absent often to be a surgeon in Africa with a happy father-son relationship. The other is more filled with angst because the mother died recently and Christian blames his father for it, which becomes the catalyst for most of the film's action. The fathers in Africa mourning the loss of their pregnant wives also play into those roles, even across the world the parental love shines through.
Honestly, there were many things to get out of this film of deep emotional and moral significance, but it also reinforced how terrifying the prospect of parenting is. You not only have to keep it alive, you also have to care for their delicate emotional health or they might make a bomb and almost blow their best friend to smithereens.
I digress; Bier's film is much more than a warning for parents. The children and the wonderful acting speak on a level understood by anyone, commentating on the time and place for revenge and forgiveness.
Musta jää (2007)
A slippery and intense drama
A fitting title for a dark drama, Black Ice is full of the undetectable deceptions that make three people's lives slippery and dangerous. Full of scenes with meaning beyond plot advancement, great acting and intense film making, Musta Jaa unfolds to be a well-made film worth watching, but not life changing. The Hollywood reminiscent style adds a wider audience than the strictly artsy films from other countries, with the dramatic scores, suspense and situations and some added flair of occasional humor.
Trust and betrayal under the blanket of deception is the biggest issue faced by the characters of this intense film. It starts with the basic cheating husband, then skillfully layers on a sort of friendship between the mistress and the wife and many levels of deceptive trust on all parties. Poor Tuuli trusts "Christa" too much for her own good, but from her perspective she wouldn't have suspicions. Leo trusts both of the women but is not trustworthy for either of them, fooling around and making a mess of people's emotions. A truly ironic scene when he thought Tuuli had cheated on him, was not just ironic in that Saara was the cause of the man's presence in bed and they called her, but also that he expected Tuuli to be faithful. Those expectations are laughable in the presence of his philandering ways, though I did appreciate that bit of complexity on his part. Even though Tuuli knows of how much he cheats on his wife, she still stays with him, which is an interesting moral predicament as a participator in adultery.
Dispersed through the film were scenes full of meaning beyond the surface level action that I appreciated greatly. When Tuuli and Saara are playing and dancing on the ice rink, it is deeply metaphorical of their situation at the time. They are cajoling around on a slippery surface, bumping into one another and dancing through this insane love triangle. They waltz together and run around trying to stay on their feet and then Saara makes the risky phone call, drawing attention to their slippery friendship. The other scene I especially noticed was the costume dance party where the two women were wearing slightly disturbing tribal costumes, masked for one another and operating in secret on so many levels.
The intensity of the movie was aided by many gory, disturbing scenes, always with some uncomfortable physicality. The sex scenes were steamy, yet tinged with the act of infidelity which made them aesthetically pleasing but morally cockeyed. The film ending and beginning with a drawn out shot of a scalpel slowly sliding through maternal flesh frames the plot with an uncomfortable emphasis on the nearness of bodily death. Another similar one follows Tuuli's playing with a knife with a crazy look in her eye, then a painfully slow shot that looks like blood dripping down her from her feet to the new hair dye she was rinsing, obviously implying self-mutilation. A scene that was particularly hard to watch for moral discomfort was when Saara tried to check Tuuli's cervix for pregnancy after drugging her, then plays it off as a continued sexual advance. The violation of the sleeping woman as well as the falsity of the encounter was deeply unsettling; it showed how far Saara had strayed morally and set the stage for the climax.
Though the film possesses a lot of positive qualities, there were just a few things I personally didn't like. Outi Maenpaa plays the betrayed wife well, though her character didn't elicit much emotional attachment from me. I wanted to root for her, but it was hard to see what she wanted exactly and if she didn't know, there wasn't much to indicate her inner conflict. I still wanted to know what was to unfold, and even if the film kept the mystery of her thoughts, I still felt almost more attached to Tuuli. I suppose a film doesn't have to have all-around likable characters, but none of them in this film were portrayed in a positive light. Even Tuuli, in my opinion the most likable character, is cast in the shadow of the jealous wife's hatred and we see her as that despicable other woman.
As an overall solid film, it does a good job of exploring what happens when the dark sides of deception undermine trusts and people get hurt. The drama and intensity of this uncomfortable film keep the viewer guessing what will transpire and this ill-fated love triangle is swept along by a current of snowballing events of a dangerous kind.
Festen (1998)
A realistic and dark Dogma95 film
Overall I thoroughly appreciate the film, I feel it was well done and expertly told the story of this twisted family. Even without understanding Danish, the body language and clear emotionality with the actors was convincing and I believed the progression of events and it made it feel as though the characters themselves were moving forward in their lives and not being fed lines by a director. The wildly contrasting emotions depicted were startling but effective; there would be moments of truly uncomfortable silence at the dinner table then the brother screaming at the top of his lungs. Sound was an interesting aspect of emotions for the film and differed for each character. Michael always had his emotions on the surface (especially anger) and would yell and curse constantly, and it is hard to watch him as a character disrupt Christian's emotionally charged silence. After the movie progresses and Christian calmly breaks that secretive silence, suddenly seeing Michael run about in chaos and fury is not so bad compared to the deep emotional pain inside Christian. The interesting Dogma style film angles and hand held techniques supplemented the realistic feel of the family interactions. The hand-held filming reinforced the Danish standard for artistic films as well as an added sense of realism in the storytelling. The family is rather strange and a bit crazy, but are believable in their characterization and the way the truths of the past emerge through the woodwork of a long family dinner wraps the viewer up into the plot and slowly reveals the darkness this family holds within them. The lack of a background score definitely supports the emotional transitions in the film; the vivid and natural sounds would lose some of their subtle power if there were instruments to distract from it. The lighting and carefully chosen settings of natural light help to remove any feeling of these terrible events being dreamlike. Keeping the story real-feeling puts the emphasis on how the abuse portrayed is not something just seen in this film, but also something that can happen to any of us. I appreciated how there was nothing miraculous that saved them from the horrors within their family, that fixing anything would have to come from within them. The mother as a witness to the abuse is an interesting and familiar figure; when she witnesses the abuse, does she act? Repress it? She simply goes on with her life, but that also rests some blame on her shoulders for not protecting her children. The little abuses grow into larger ones and they are all layered into one very dysfunctional family. The theme of denial or repression was one that pairs nicely with the one of abuse. At first when Christian reveals his dark relationship to his father, the family pretends it didn't happen and tries to continue on with the dinner rather than face reality. They do this several times, but once it becomes apparent that Christian is not lying, they are forced to face the discomfort. In the Dogma style, there is not supposed to be any superficial violence, and I would like to know more about how the violent scenes were filmed since I couldn't tell if they were genuine or not and it detracted from the realistic feel. Other than details like that, I felt the movie had few drawbacks beside the discomfort of viewing such a dark film. For a story full of such dark, horrific truths, the Dogma style was perfect to play out this story because it removes many of the Hollywood-esque techniques that make films larger than life. Without extra music, sweeping film angles, or manipulated settings the story is given a realistic quality that would otherwise be impossible. The Dogma style requires every event to have as little superficiality as possible, nothing fake or superimposed. In the world of films such as Avatar and Harry Potter which bend reality into fantastic alternative possibilities, a film such as Celebration has such a stark realism that strikes deeper than an epic adventure. This story could happen, and the movie-making technique doesn't have to manipulate what is depicted to convince the viewer of the film's realities beyond the acting. The themes of abuse, relationships and repression are portrayed skillfully in this realism and avoid the obstacle of believability that cookie-cutter films must overcome. The commentary this realism evokes on the health of relationships, owning up to truth and abuse is quite pungent and important.