Danish Cinema

Lately I've wandered off the Hollywood map as I do now and then. Usually I find a director or an actor that interests me. I read there IMDB page or biography somewhere on the web. Then, as I do occasionally still, I hunt down everything by that particular artist I can find. It is like pulling on a thread on a sweater. Soon you find so many other threads are attached to it.

This thread was Mads Mikkelsen. Most audiences remember him as the villain in the James Bond re-boot Casino Royale. I actually discovered him not via Bond, but by way of Valhalla. Bored with another Michael Bay enema, I trolled the depths of the web. I found the intriguingly titled Valhalla Rising. The capsule on the plot sounded intriguing so I downloaded it.

90 minutes later I was confused, amazed and hungry(I'd forgotten to eat dinner). With only 150 lines of total dialogue and a protagonist who has no dialogue(and almost no visible emotion), why was this film so captivating? It was like an acid trip. Visually stunning, unclear meaning, and it left you with a sense of unease. I still don't know if this was a great film or total crap, but it's stuck with me.

But what stuck with me the most was Mads. So I was back to the web. After the Wedding was heartrending and a very good film. Another thread which led me to some more great Danish actors and directors. Adam's Apples was a messy and slow mongrel of a movie attempting to be an allegory or slight allusion to the biblical story of Job. Good actors, bad movie. Flame and Citron, a WWII resistance story based on fact, is a solid war movie that delves deeper than the black and white realm of friend and enemy into the grays in between.

Just today I watched Kongekabale, or the King's Game. Not 100% sure what the title refers to, but this felt like the Danish version of All the President's Men(the story of how two reporters broke the Watergate scandal)... except this is pure fiction. It lacks some dramatic punch in its final act, but is solid fare.

I find that without the big recognizable Hollywood rising stars, power brokers, and the old guard... I focus more on the movie. The plot, the acting, the camerawork and so on...

I still have a few films in my queue:

Max Manus -another WWII film

The Pusher Trilogy -crime/drug thriller

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky -love story?

Nu -a short film

Exit -about corporate blackmail

and some non-Danish films:

Mesrine & Public Enemy Number One -a French crime/police series

Howl -about the great Beat poet Allen Ginsberg

Monsters -an independent science fiction movie

Cheers and happy viewing.