After The Wedding.

Having already enjoyed two films directed by Danish born film director Susanne Bier, the first was Brothers (2004) and the second was the Academy Award winning In a Better World (2010) which starred the Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt who can presently be seen in the BBC4 series Beck, I was looking forward to seeing her 2006 movie After the Wedding and was not to be disappointed as the director had certainly maintained her normal extraordinary high standard.

 

A man with a past .

A man with a hidden agenda .

Jacob Petersen heads an Indian based orphanage and his work helps to save many vulnerable young street children. An honourable man but a loner who because of his chosen career is compelled to forgo mature relationships, but a man with a past but one that would appear to be happy with his situation. When the orphanage is threatened by closure, he receives an unusual offer. A Danish businessman, Jørgen Lennart Hansson, offers him a donation of $4 million dollars. There are, however, certain conditions and Jørgen’s motives are not what they seem. Not only must Jacob return to Denmark, he must also attend the wedding of Jørgen's daughter. The wedding proves to be a critical juncture between past and future and catapults Jacob into the most intense dilemma of his life. Family secrets will be revealed along with Jørgen’s well intentioned hidden agenda, but does it give Jørgen Hansson the right to control other people's lives even those close to him and will it be morally justifiable and does the end result justify the means?

 

A beautiful woman caught in a triangle of passion.

The sensitive daughter.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, only loosing out to the German movie The Lives of Others (2006), After The Wedding is chock fall of believable characters that are beautifully portrayed by all four lead actors.  For example a sensitive portrayal of the daughter by Stine Fischer Christensen, Mads Mikkelson’s melancholy depiction of the troubled and intense Jacob, Rolf Lassgard powerful interpretation of the rich businessman and Sidse Babett Knudson as Helene Hansson torn between Jørgen her husband and a previous relationship. All four, as well as the supporting actors, display the essence of natural acting, proving that it is the key to the great performances in this film and also proves how important casting was for the portrayal of Anders Thomas Jensen’s screenplay. Screen International described it as not only a powerful compelling drama but complex and gripping. Emotional, but never melodramatic it underlines the difference between the poverty of India and privilege of Jørgen and his family. I would sincerely recommend that lovers of a well told, brilliantly acted, superbly directed drama should not miss a chance to see this movie. 

The Duke of Burgundy.

Peter Strickland at EIFF 2012

Described as a maverick of modern British cinema Reading born Peter Strickland made his debut feature film in 2006. This low budget rural revenge drama Katalin Varga was filmed over a 17-day period in the Hungarian speaking part of the Romanian region of Transylvania; the project was completed for £28000. His next film had its World Premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June 2012. Berberian Sound Studio is a very nostalgic look at a world before digital recording devices and striped bare the mechanics of the old horror analogue film studios that would commandeer all sorts of every day items to make some very gruesome noises, including an array of garden produce like melons, cabbages and radishes! A film to be honest I had to see twice to appreciate! He followed this with a concert film that he co- directed and edited, Bjork: Biophila Live was filmed at the Alexandra Palace in Wood Green London in September 2013 and featured the Icelandic singer/songwriter[1] performing tracks from her recent tour.  Which brings us to Mr Strickland’s latest work and this weeks Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club screening The Duke of Burgundy[2] (2014).

Shot in Hungary, Strickland’s latest movie is set in an enchanting pastoral world of butterflies and country houses, populated by women. (No men are to be seen anywhere in this movie). It is without doubt a relationship drama, albeit a sadomasochistic one and focuses on a submissive simmering love affair between Cynthia, a beautiful sophisticated woman and Evelyn, the younger of the two who acts as Cynthia’s maid carrying out tasks and being punished when she regularly does not complete them to her mistresses high standards. These punishments include being used as a human toilet.  Into this atmospheric situation comes the carpenter played by Fatma Mohamed[3] who specialises in made to measure items to intensify transgressive sexual pleasure and measures Evelyn for a bed box, a special gift from Cynthia for the younger woman’s birthday.

 

Sidse Babett Knudsen as Cynthia. 

The question quickly arises, who is actually getting pleasure in this relationship? At times I think your find it difficult to tell. I would agree with the Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw when he opines that The Duke of Burgundy proves that erotic cinema can have genuine substance. Although the narrative is pretty static it’s the ‘simmering undercurrents that are so curiously affecting’[4]. 

 

Chiara D'Anna as Evelyn.

Farma Mohamed as The Carpenter.

Similar in cinematic style to Berberian Sound Studio, which is not surprising as Strickland uses the same cinematographer Nicholas Knowland. It’s a very good movie to look at, beautifully photographed putting you in mind of Euro porn movie’s of the seventies with its soft focus and bizarre imaginary, and has an intriguing story line which you will either love or hate, but it is important that you view this drama with a completely open mind and bring to it no preconceived prejudices.

Just one of the beautiful settings that Nicholas Knowland captures with his camera. 

The star of this film is Sidse Babett Knudsen, who you will recognise as the Scottish First Ministers favourite TV female politician Birgitte Nyborg the Prime Minister of Denmark in the award winning series Borgen. She plays Cynthia, rarely off the screen and holding your attention at all times, a really wonderful sensual actress who portrayal is one of the main reasons for making sure you see this movie. The Italian actress Chiara D’Anna who Strickland used previously in Berberian Sound Studio plays Evelyn. This is by far the best of Strickland’s feature films to date and certainly one of the most interesting and captivating films I’ve seen this year: don’t miss a chance to see this wonderfully sexual and erotically charged movie.  

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[1] Starred in Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark in 2000, opposite Catherine Deneuve

[2] A European butterfly.

[3] Appeared in both of Strickland previous two feature films.

[4] Mark Reynolds Movie mail.

Above The Street Below The Water (Over gaden under vandet)

Without meaning to get repetitive when talking about Scandinavian movies I still can’t see why good quality films made from Denmark in particular have not managed to get a cinematic release in the UK? This is the third excellent film from that part of the world that I have seen recently, and this one has not even been shown on our festival circuit as far as I can find out.  

If Above The Street Below The Water (2009) is any thing to go by the divorce rate in Copenhagen, where the film is based and shot, must be extremely high. Although this movie is a black comedy, it is depressing how many relationships can go sour with people, who should know better, lying to one another pretending that their behaviour is normal when it is obviously not! It’s also obvious that children of couples that go through marriage breakdowns are greatly affected and director and actress Charlotte Sieling’s debut feature film with its tongue firmly in its cheek demonstrates, with some skill, how both siblings and adults are affected by promiscuity.

 

Ask has fallen out of love with Anne.

This Danish middle class ‘soap opera’ deals with three couples, Anne (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a well-known actress and her husband Ask (Nicolas Bro) who have two children, a young boy and a daughter who is still living at home but is pregnant. Ask has fallen out of love with his wife and in love with Bente (Ellen Hillingsø), whose alcoholic ex husband Bjorn lives on a houseboat, they have a teenage son.  The third couple are Charlotte (Ellen Nyman), who is Anne and Ask’s marriage counsellor, and who is married to Carl (Niels Ole Oftebro) who just so happens to be Anne’s stage director and incidentally a serial adulterer!  Believe me you will get completely involved with this tangled group of people! Things come to a head during the opening night of Hamlet in which Anne plays Ophelia; this play is nowhere near as dramatic as to what takes place just before and during the performance! 

The other woman. 

I personally found the relationships quite demoralising where the characters are constantly under a great deal of stress because of their own actions, always being argumentative rather than settling for the option of working on their relationships. Real life I suppose is never easy? The acting is superb bringing together recognisable actors from various BBC4 series including The Killing, The Bridge and of course Sidse Babett Knudsen from Borgan.