The Commune.

Thomas Vinterberg latest cinema release The Commune (2016) is set in Copenhagen in the mid 1970’s where we discover that Erik, a teacher of ‘rational architect’, has inherited a large manor house that belonged to his father. Eric financial circumstances will not allow for its upkeep and he thinks its best if he sell’s the house, but his wife Anna, a popular TV newscaster and his teenage daughter Freja want to keep it. Anna convinces Eric to set up the huge property as a commune and share the upkeep between the occupants. Invitations are issued and interviews take place. At first it all works out very amicably with every one getting on well, taking part in the many kitchen table meetings, the dinners and the parties. That is until Eric falls for one of his female students and moves her into the commune. At first Anna accepts the fact that her husband no longer wishes to sleep with her but is happy for Emma to stay at the commune. But this utopia doesn’t continue and the repercussions from Eric’s actions affect everyone.  

 

The kitchen table meetings.

Based on a play called Kollektivet written by Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov, which was inspired by the directors own childhood experiences. It’s a ‘family’ drama with a difference, emotionally moving but at times very funny, the film has a star cast that portray exceptionally well this touching portrait of a generation of idealists who have never quite fulfilled their dreams. 

 

Will Anna except the new comer?

Emma gets to know Erik. 

The Danish director and Dogme 95 co-founder is best known for the brilliant Festen (1998) another family drama, this time involving a family gathering to celebrate their fathers 60^th birthday during which long buried secrets resurface, and The Hunt (2012) which stars Mads Mikkelsen as a teacher whose accused of sexually abusing a young child in his care. Erik is played by Ulrich Thomsen, who has appeared in some remarkable World Cinema outings including Festen, Brodre (2004), the award winning In a Better World (2010) the German thriller The Silence (2010) and the Danish police procedural A Second Chance (2014). The Danish actress and singer Trine Dyrholm plays Anna who was also in Festen and In a Better World as well as the historical drama A Royal Affair (2012). It also features Vinterberg’s wife Helene Reingaard Neurmann as Emma, along with Lebanon born Fares Fares and Danish TV and film actor Lars Ranthe as members of the commune.

Child 44.

A grand cast doesn’t always equate to a grand film and one such case in point is Daniel Espinosa’s Child 44 (2015). Espinosa you may remember was the director behind the best of the Easy Money trilogy Snabba Cash (2010) and two of the stars from the trilogy appear in this latest movie, Joel Kinnaman plays Vasili Nikitin a middle-ranking officer in the Ministry of State Security (MGB) and Fares Fares who plays Alexi Andreyev. The main star and the films narrative backbone is the popular British actor Tom Hardy who plays Leo Demidov. As a child Demidov was orphaned during the Holodomor[1] in the Ukrainian SSR that took place in the 1930’s but manages to escape from the orphanage and is taken in by some kindly Soviet soldiers eventually becoming a war hero. After the war Leo Demidov becomes a MGB agent and uncovers a series of child murders but the MGB leadership refuse to except the death as murders because Soviet doctrine states that murder only occurs in capitalist country’s “There can be no murder in paradise” One of the dead children is the son of Leo’s best friend Alexi Andreyer and even he does not believe that his son has been murdered! The female lead in our story, which incidentally is based on a novel of the same name published in 2008, is another favourite of Movie Ramble Noomi Repace who plays Leo’s wife Raisa. When Raisa is accused of being disloyal to the state Leo refused to denounce her, both are sent to the town of Volsk and given demeaning jobs.  Both suspect that Vasili Nikitin is behind their downfall. Other well known and respected actors the calibre of Gary Oldman, Vincent Cassell, Paddy Considine, Charles dance and Tara Fitzgerald all have prominent roles in the movie.

 

Even a cast this good can't rescue this movie. 

But as I said at the beginning of this ramble a well known and respected cast does not always mean that what we are about to see is going to be something to rejoice over and I must say that this is true in the case of this movie. On the face of it this should have been an exciting mystery thriller but I’m afraid it’s completely lacking any real excitement, Its far to long, the story is made too complicated when there is no need to bogged down with unnecessary subplots.  The heavy “Russian” accents of the various actors force you to put on the subtitles to help understand what’s being said. Perhaps someone could explain to me why the story was not centred on the murder mystery, why the film was not made with East European actors with undertitles and why everything had to be so dark? The Ministry of Culture had the good sense to block the screening in Russia, as did other Eastern Block countries - but it was made available on DVD in these same countries even Russia has a bargain bin!

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[1] A man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5–7.5 million Ukrainians, with millions more counted in demographic estimates. It was part of the wider disaster, the Soviet famine of 1932–33, which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.

The Keeper of Lost Causes (Kvinden I buret).

Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen has successfully written six novels in the Department Q series. The first two have been adapted into feature films the second of which Fassandraeberne (The Absent One) 2014 does not seem to have a UK release date as yet, the third film A Conspiracy of Faith is being filmed at present and is due for release in 2016. But the first of the series, based on the novel Mercy adapted for the screen by Nikolj Arcel, was released in August 2014 to very little fanfare and not very much critical acclaim although it was the top selling film in Denmark for seven weeks. Kvinden I buret or to give it its English title The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013) is directed by Mikkel Norgaard who is possibly best known for directing four episodes of the award winning Danish political TV series Borgen.  

This crime thriller has the standard Scandinavian cop. A pill popping heavy drinking maverick, a misanthrope who falls foul of the police authority when he jumps the gun and enters a suspect’s property without proper backup. In the shootout that follows it is not only Inspector Carl Morck that’s badly wounded but his two partners are respectively dead and paralysed. On his return to work after a long convalescence the Inspector is demoted and assigned to a basement office to head up Department Q, which has been set up to look into ‘cold cases’.  

 

Just the beginning of Carl Morck's problems.

The department consists of himself and his new assistant Assad. Although their brief is only too read and sort through the cases, its not long before Morck stubborn nature throws them headfirst into the mystery of Merete Lynggaard's disappearance; a beautiful female politician who vanished five years ago from a passenger ferry, the only witness her brain-damaged brother who was found on the car deck, screaming at the top of his voice. The case was considered to be an apparent suicide. Unconvinced by this explanation the inspector and his assistant set out to disprove this theory.

 

Merete Lynggaard and her brother. 

Department Q - Cold Case Review 

As I have already said this movie did not get very good reviews outside of Denmark and I would concur that it’s probable more suited to a TV series where the main characters could be flushed out more, but it is still a good police procedural with plenty of excitement and a steady build up of tension leading to a thrilling conclusion. The two main characters make a good team with Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Carl Morck who played Mathies Borch in the third series of the award winning TV drama The Killing, Assad is played by Fares Fares who you may have seen in Easy Money 2: Hard to Kill and the American movie Zero Dark Thirty both released in 2012.  Both these actors repeat their roles in the two sequels.  

Easy Money 2: Hard to Kill.

This second film in Swedish franchise based on Jens Lapidus’s novels Snabba cash has a very penultimate feel, seemingly dedicating itself to setting up the third film in the series. Easy Money 2: Hard to Kill (2012) is a follow up to Easy Money released in 2010. This time we have Babak Najafi at the helm instead of Daniel Espinosa but the story continues basically from where the previous movie finished. We now find Johan ‘JW’ Westland sharing a cell in the State Prison with Mrado Slovovic. Mrado, following the shooting at the end of the previous film, is now confined to a wheel chair but surprisingly both men are getting on really well! When JW is on release from prison to help him adapt ready for his permanent release he decides not to go back and instead arranges an escape plan for his crippled cellmate. Meanwhile the man with nine lives Jorge Salinas Barrio, who is also on the run from prison, sets up a drug deal to end all drug deals and Mahmud owes a large sum of money to the Serbian Mafia and must pay it back on the threat of his life.

Another cracking yarn where we again observe Stockholm’s sinister underworld and its racial tensions. The cast has not changed with Joel Kinnaman as JW, Matias Varela as Jorge, Dragomir Mrsic as Mrado and the Lebanese born actor Fares Fares as Mahmud.  Maybe not quite as exciting as the previous outing but certainly gives you an appetite for Easy Money 3: Life Deluxe.