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.

A Second Chance (En chance till).

Susanne Bier is a Danish filmmaker; born in Copenhagen in 1960 the 55 year old is best known in the UK for two award-winning movies After the Wedding (2006) and In A Better World (2010). Currently her work can be sampled on BBC TV on a Sunday night, as she is responsible for directing the miniseries The Night Manager that is based on the novel of the same name by John Le Carre and stars Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Coleman, Hugh Laurie and Tom Hollander. Her last feature film released in March 2015 is another Danish language movie A Second Chance (En chance till) (2014).

 

Happy families.....

....not quite!

Detectives Andreas (Nikolay Coster-Waldau) and Simon (Ulrich Thomsen) are the best of friends but lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his off duty waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But things change when the partners are called out to deal with a domestic dispute that involves a criminal out on parole and the mother of his baby son. Both Tristan (Nikolay Lie Kaas) and Sanne (ex model Lykke May Anderson) are junkies and as witnessed by the state of their baby covered in excrement are not loving and caring parents. When Social Services refuse to take the baby away and a family tragedy strikes Andreas it forces the normally upstanding policeman to commit an act that that he will live to regret.

 

Two Detectives that lead vastly different live's - that is until.... 

This moving thriller with a difference about ordinary people is made quite believable by the skill of the director and the acting from her well-known cast. Although Anders Thomas Jensen script is a little predictable at first it soon gathers pace developing into a great story that, without given anything away, has a grand twist. I would certainly recommend this movie to those of you that love a gritty Scandinavian drama and will not be put off by a heart-rending story.  

Festen (The Celebration)

It is often said that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family, which seems to be proved in the case of Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 psychodrama Festen. When Helge Klingelfeldt invites his family and friends to his vast hotel to celebrate his 60^th birthday he hopes that his three surviving children, Christian, Michael and Helene, Christian's twin sister Linda recently committed suicide at the hotel, will attend and give the impression of a united, happy and loving family. That evening as the assembled gathering take their places at dinner Christian raises his glass in what they think will be a poignant toast to his father. But his eldest sons speech is certainly unexpected and leads to a tragic and heart breaking night where Happy Families will never again be the game of chose.

 

A birthday speech that would change every thing.

This is the first film created under Dogma 95 rules. Founded in 1995 by Vinterburg and Lars von Trier it was set up to purify filmmaking by not using special effects, post production modifications and other things deemed as ‘technical gimmicks’. The filmmakers were to concentrate on the story and the actor’s performances. Among the rules laid down are that the film must be shot on location, no music should be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot, all camera work to be hand held and in colour, no special lighting and the film must be shot on 35mm stock.

Sister Helena is deeply effected by Christian's speech.

As far as Festen was concerned this way of filmmaking could not disguise the fact that Vinterberg and co-writer Mogans Rukov produced an extremely well written script, the acting is first rate and movie is superbly well directed.  Christian is played by Ulrich Thomson who appeared in the German film The Silence (2010) and In a Better World (2010), which won Best Foreign Language Film at both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. We saw Thomas Bo Larsen, who plays Michael, in another of Vinterberg’s film’s The Hunt (2012) which tackled alleged child abuse and Danish actress Paprika Steen, who portrays sister Helena, was in the British film Skeletons (2010) with Jason Isaacs. 

  

The Silence.

This German thriller is directed and written by Swiss born Baran bo Odar and based on a novel called Das Schwegen by Jan Costin Wagner. When The Silence (2010) opens we witness two men sitting in a darkened apartment watching a cine film, these two men have recently became friends while both were observing young children in a play area. Peer Sommer and Timo Friedrich get into Perr’s car and go out for a drive; they spot Pia an 11-year-old female, she’s cycling on a lonely country path across a wheat field. Peer’s stops the car, chases the girl across the field and rapes her. He then batters her head in with a rock and dispossess of the body. Timo is a witness to the whole event but does not get out of the car until both men arrive home. Traumatised Timo gets on a bus and leaves town. 23 years latter 13-year-old Sinnikka goes missing, her bike is discovered in the same wheat field!

This is not just a movie about paedophilia; it’s a film about loneliness and how an inept small town police force can put its own personnel hang-ups before the investigation of two murders 23 years apart. It’s the fullness of the characters that makes this film stand out from so many other police procedurals. Firstly we have Senior Detective Krischan Mittich who failed to solve the original case and is retiring 23 years to the day after Pia was murdered. His obsession with solving this crime was at the detriment of his marriage that disintegrated and left him lonely and bitter. The new murder is being investigated by David Jahn, a man so emotionally damaged by the death of his wife from cancer the he has only just returned to work after five months in a treatment centre.  Even now he still suffers from fits and dresses in his dead wife’s clothes. In charge of the case is Mittich’s replacement and great rival Matthias Grimmer an incompetent policeman who never listens to any advice from his officers or from the man he replaced. The other member of the team is Jana Glazer, a heavily pregnant female detective who has a thing for Jahn and seems unable to follow her own instincts.

 

Peers and Timo have something sinister in common.

The only actor I am familiar with is Ulrich Thomson who plays the otherwise kindly caretaker Peer Sommer. He appeared in the Danish film that won Best Foreign Language Film in the 83^rd Academy awards, In A Better World (2010) and you might also remember him from the 2004 Danish drama Brodre (Brothers).  The acting is first rate, the cinematography highlights the beautiful Bavarian countryside and although it may stretch credibility a touch, it’s a powerful film that would satisfy fans of Scandinavian crime drama.