Cinema Scandinavia Issue 7 Winter 2014 Digital

CINEMA SCANDINAVIA
A quarterly publication for the films of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden
Issue Seven | Winter 2014
Force Majeure and the Bystander

Cinema of Ruben stlund
The popularity of Danish drama | the provocative cinema of lars von Trier | Real humans:
Swedish sci fi | Rare exports | The Nordic council film prize | cph:dox
reviews of the absent one, concrete night, copenhagen, how to stop a wedding, the keeper of lost causes, paris of the north, the1
salvation, something must break, speed walking, the 100 year old man, and we are the best
welcome to issue seven
Of Horses and Men | Winner of the 2014 Nordic Council Film Prize
In this issue of Cinema Scandinavia, we look back at the top Scandinavian films from 2014, as well as Christmas
and youth dramas. This year was a major year for Scandinavian film and television, with Ruben stlunds Force
Majeure winning the Jury Prize at Cannes, Denmarks most expensive television drama ever, 1864, airing on DR,
and a large number of festivals with Nordic programs. As it is the festive season, it feels necessary to look at the
Finnish depiction of Santa Claus in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, as well as current popular youth dramas
like Misantropolis. Overall, 2014 has produced some of the highest quality content yet, and there is no doubt
2015 will be just as good, if not better.
our writers
Editor: Emma Robinson | Australia
Erik Anderson | Canada
Paulo Antunes | Portugal
Valeriya Baeva | Russia
Frederik Bove | Denmark
Birgit de Bruin | Netherlands
Sandra Fijn van Draat | Denmark
Piers Ford | England

Barry Forshaw | England
Mikkel Frederiksen | Denmark
Kirsti J-K | England
Petr Pltenk | Czech Republic
Maximilien Luc Proctor | Germany
Barbara Majsa | Hungary
Zack Miller | Canada
Kate Moffat | England

Cleo Paraskevopoulou | Greece
Taylor Sinople | USA
Lizzie Taylor | Sweden
Bram Adimas Wasito | Indonesia
You can find biographical
information on the website
3
Feature Articles
10

The Nordic Council Film Prize
16
In case of no emergency: the bystander

cinema of ruben stlund

68
Aerobics: Presenting mental illness in

cinema
72
Read about the top five Nordic films of the

year, and find out the winner of the prize.
As one of the top films of the year, how

does Force Majeure relate to stlunds
other work?
The infernal santa claus in

rare exports: a christmas tale
One of the top Swedish indie films of the

year, this film tackles important societal
questions.
75
misantropolis: a new hope for

scandinavian youth drama
A recently debuted web series,

Misantropolis is creating a new wave of
youth drama
77

Lukas holgersson
40
the secret of the danes
1864: denmarks largest national

trauma is more traumatising on film
than in real life
42
Adam price: not just for the danes
34
mads mikkelsen
46
An interview with the einstein couple
36
The legacy of matador
Explore the dimensions of the demonic

Santa Claus in this Finnish Christmas film.
The biggest Swedish child actor, explore

the works of the young Lukas Holgersson.
the popularity of Danish drama

26
50-59
real humans: swedish sci fi
television
60-67 t he provocative cinema of

lars von trier
note: all references mentioned can be found on the back page of this
issue, or on the cinema scandinavia website
4
reviews
cph:dox
89
The Keeper of Lost Causes / kvinden i buret
81
90
The Absent One / Fasandrberne
82 1989
91
Speed Walking / Kapgang
83
Concerning Violence
92
Of Horses and Men / Hross oss
84
Nitrate Flames
92
How to Stop a Wedding / hur man stoppar ett 84
brllop
85
93
We are the Best! Vi r bst!
85
94
Concrete Night / Betoniy
86
96 Copenhagen
87
96
The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the

Window and Disappeared / Hundraringen som

klev ut genom fnstret och frsvann
97
Paris of the North / Pars Norursins
97
The Salvation
The Look of Silence
Olmo and the Seagull

Songs for Alexis
The Gold Bug
The Newsroom: Off the Record
The Reunion
99
Something Must Break / Nnting mste g
snder
99
Force Majeure / Turist
100
Aerobics: A Love Story
101
Dawn / Morgenrde
facebook.com/cinemascandinavia
@CineScandinavia
www.cinemascandinavia.com
a lot of the reviews this issue were provided by Taylor sinople from the focus pull. visit www.thefocuspull.com for
more film reviews
5
news september-december
The Absent One Breaks Box
Office Records
Peter von Bagh was also one of the

founders of the legendary Midnight
Sun Film Festival in Sodankyl,
The sequel to The Keeper of Lost where he acted as festival director for
Causes, The Absent One, has been 29 years and illuminated each edition
breaking records at the Danish box with his personality.
office. Released on the 2nd of October, the movie sold over 131,000
admissions during its first weekend. Audience Crisis for Danish Films
Since then it has sold many more in Denmark
tickets, becoming Denmarks highest
grossing film ever.
In 2013, Danish films sold 4.1 million tickets, securing a Danish marRecord Visitors at Helsinkis Love ket share of 29.6%. During the first
and Anarchy
seven months of 2014, however, they
accounted for only 21.1% of admisThe 27th Helsinki International Film sions. In July they reached an allFestival Love and Anarchy celebrat- time low of 5%.
ed its highest ever crowd, with over We can no longer hide the fact that
61,500 visitors and over 100 interna- Danish cinema domestically has entional film professionals. The festi- tered a trough the size of the Grand
vals audience award went to the Pol- Canyon, said the head of trade asish Oscar candidate IDA, and among sociation Danish Cinemas, Kim Pedthe festivals most popular titles were ersen. The situation has been diOf Horses and Men and The Look sastrous during the last five months;
of Silence.
historically, this is an audience crisis
we have never seen before.
Nordic Focus at Power to the Pixel
Mayor Angry at Lilyhammer
The world leading event in cross-me- Lilyhammer started on TV in Nordia ran from the 7th-10th of October, way recently, and the major of Vgan
parallel to the London Film Festival, in Lofoten claims he has been cheatand this year it hsoted a special Nor- ed of publicity. The new season of
dic focus. Around 40 Nordic creators, the show features footage shot in Loproducers, private and public funders foten, but the finished show tells peoattended.
ple that they are seeing Vesterlen,
a rival region which competes with
Lofoten over tourism. The mayor, EiPeter von Bagh Passes Away
vind Holst of the Conservative Party,
called the mix-up totally sick.
Peter von Bagh was a celebrated
Finnish film critic and film historian, Chicago Film Festival Spotlight on
as well as a documentary filmmaker. Scandinavia
He wrote over 40 books on film history and film directors, such as Aki The festival opened with Liv UllKaurismki and Alfred Hitchcock. manns Miss Julie, and went on to
6
focus on 20 Scandinavian features

and 8 shorts. Since 1967, we have
had a tradition presenting and awarding films from Scandinavian masters,
from Aki Kaurismki and Fridrik
Thor Fridriksson to Bille August and
Tomas Alfredson, said the festivals
founder and artistic director, Michael Kutza, adding that Miss Julie
is a suitable way to get things started,
as Chicago has screened Ullmanns
three previous films as a director.
Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier is afraid he has run
dry
I dont know if I can make more
films, and that worries me, said
Danish director Lars von Trier in his
first interview since his self-imposed
silence, after he was accused of violating French legislation against glorifying war crimes at the press conference following the screening of
his film Melancholia at the Cannes
International Film Festival in 2011.
In Copenhagen, he told Danish journalist Nils Thorsen, of the Politiken
daily, that almost all of his films had
been written while he was under the
influence of alcohol or drugs. Now he
had been sober for three months, not
missing his daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
awa r d s a n d p r i z e s
top prizes, the Silver Shell for Best
Actress, awarded to Paprika Steen
for her role as a daughter struggling
with her mothers painful decision.
The last time a Danish film won a
main award at San Sebastian was in
2004 with Connie Nielsen and Ulrich Thomsen both receiving a Silver
Shell for their roles in Susanne Biers
Brothers.
by 2.500, was awarded to the Finnish documentary film Once I Dreamt

of Life by Jukka Krkkinen and Sini
Liimatainen. The Nordic Film Days
Lbeck is the largest festival outside
Scandinavia devoted to the films
from the Nordic and Baltic regions.
This year 172 films were screened in
various sections.
The Legacy is the Best Danish Television Drama
short news
a pigeon sat...
DR Fiktions hit series The Legacy

(Arvingerne) was handed out the
Roy Andersson Wins Golden Lion Best TV Drama Award as well as
the Viewers Award at the annual
The Golden Lion for Best Film went TV Prisen or Danish TV Awards certo Swedish director Roy Andersson emony held at Copenhagens Tivoli
for A Pigeon Sat on A Branch Re- Congress Centre.
flecting on Existence, the film with
the longest title and the most poetic,
offbeat and striking story at the 71st The winners of the Amanda Awards
Venice Festival. Andersson, who is
71 years old and has only made five Aksel Hennie won Best Actor for
films, thanked Italian cinema, par- his role in Pioneer, his fourth win
ticularly Bicycle Thieves. Cinema in this category. The big winners
should be full of empathy, just like were Blind and A Thousand Times
De Sicas film!
Good Night, which won respectively
four and three awards. Erik Poppes
Concrete Night Wins at Finnish A Thousand Times Good Night
Film Week
received Best Norwegian Film in
Theatrical Release, Best Music and
Finnish Oscar submission Concrete Best Cinematography. His directorial
Night won Director of the Year for debut Blind won Eskil Vogt the Best
Pirjo Honkasalo and Producers of the Directing Amanda, and it was also
Year for Mark Lwoff-Misha Jaaari at awarded with Amandas for Best EdHelsinkis Finnish Film Week.
iting and Best Sound Design.
Paprika Steen is Best Actress at Nordic Film Days Prize
San Sebastian
The 56th Nordic Film Days Lbeck
Enjoying its world premiere at the awarded its main prizeto the IcelanSan Sebastian Film Festival, Bille dic film Life in a Fishbowl, directAugusts drama Silent Heart was ed by Baldvin Z. The Documentary
honoured with one of the festivals Film Prize, which was accompanied
Sidse Babett Knudsen received a

Chevalier des Arts et Lettres at the
French embassy in Copenhagen.
A new film festival, led by Icelandic
film director Fririk r Fririksson,
will be launched in Reykjavk this
winter.
Film director Ruben stlund has
been appointed professor at Valand
Academy, University of Gothenburg.
Lars von Triers Kingdom has finished second in the New York Magazines list of the ten scariest TV
shows ever.
The Oscars
Sorrow and Joy (DEN)
Concrete Night (FIN)
Life in a Fishbowl (ICE)
1001 Grams (NOR)
Force Majeure (SWE)
NORDIC ADMISSIONS UPDATE

At the moment it is The Absent One at the top spot in Denmark, confirming
its title as the best selling film in 2014 with almost 800,000 admissions (as of
mid-November). Bille Augusts Silent Heart is also in the top ten list, with
112,000 admissions. In Finland, long runner The Grump by Dome Karukoski
is still the top Finnish film in the country. The comedy drama has sold a
staggering 414,740 tickets so far and dropped only by 4% week on week. In
Iceland, the new instalment in the Sveppi comedy series The Biggest Rescue
is scoring again with local crowds. The film kept its fourth place at the Top
10 and so far 30,386 people have seen the film written, directed, produced by
Bragi r Hinriksson. In Norway the third instalment in the pre-school film
franchise Casper and Emmas Christmas is in its third weekend in second
place, beating Interstellar and Dumb and Dumber 2. Lastly, in Sweden, just
under at number five, Roy Anderssons A Pigeon Sat on a Branch sold an
extra 9.800 tickets in its third week, pushing total numbers to 41,715.
the legacy
things to look
f o r wa r d t o i n
2015
The Legacy has been sold to to US production company

Universal Cable Productions (UCP). UCP will now start
on an American version of the series, and in the mean time
NBC has one year to find a station willing to air the original
series.
The top five Scandinavian films of the year

(according to Taylor from www.thefocuspull.com)
1. Force Majeure
2. 1001 Grams
3. Speed Walking
4. Something Must Break
5. The 100 Year Old Man...
The Bridge season three has begun filming, and is due

for release next year, despite not including lead actor Kim
Bodnia. No subtitled release has been announced, but it will
surely come soon.
Swedish star actor Mikael Persbrandt is set to play a charismatic TV anchor who falls for a femme fatale half his age
(Malin Buska) in the Estonian/Swedish/Norwegian co-production Nordic Instinct directed by Kadri Kusaar.
The Commune by Thomas Vinterberg
The commune
directors starting new films:

Thomas Vinterberg with his film
The Commune
Nils Gaup with his Sami-themed
The Last King
Lars von Trier with his television
series The House That Jack Built
Joachim Trier with his film Louder
Than Bombs
Ruben Ostlund with Way Out
West
men and chicken
Nicholas Winding Refn with The
Men and Chicken will be released next year, and will feature pretty much
Neon Demon
every Danish actor you are familiar with.The list includes: Mads Mikkelsen,
Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Nicolas Bro, Sren Molling, and David Dencik. The film has
already been sold at the American Film Market, so an international release will
be announced soon. The film is written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen.
Rolf Lassgrd will star in

the adaptation of the novel
A Man Called Ove
rolf lassgrd
c i n e m a s c a n d i n av i a w i n t e r 2 0 1 4
The 2014
Nordic
Council
Film Prize
10
blind
words: Frederick Bov

When, back in April, the Copenhagen PIX film festival gave
its two awards to the Norwegian film Blind and the Icelandic
film Of Horses and Men, there were slight murmurs at this
apparent bit of Scandinavian favoritism. And it did perhaps
seem a bit weird at the time. But at this point, at the end of year,
after both those films got nominated for the Nordic Council
Film Prize, after Scandinavian films like Force Majeure and
Nymphomaniac had drawn so much attention abroad, and
after the Venice film festival gave two of its biggest awards
to Scandinavian films as well, we have to consider that 2014
might just have been a pretty incredible year for Scandinavian
cinema. While the nominees for the Council prize might be
the most acclaimed films of the year, there was also extremely well-made genre films like In Order of Disappearance
and The Absent One, and another batch of great documentaries, and as the festival season began with The Hunt competing for the Foreign Language Oscar, it ended with Norwegian director Morten Tyldum eyeing several nominations
for his English language biopic The Imitation Game. A full
review of every noteworthy film this year would take many,
many pages, but one can get a sense of the vitality and variety of Scandinavian cinema through looking at the five very
different nominees for this years Nordic Council Film Prize.
One problem with the Nordic Council Film Prize is that the
five Scandinavian countries do not have the same filmmaking
traditions. To illustrate that, lets use Academy Award nominations: Both Iceland and Finland have been nominated for
the Oscar for Best Foreign Film exactly once. At the other end,
Ingmar Bergman alone has been nominated for that Oscar
three times, and won every time, while Denmark has received
four nominations in the last ten years. Not surprisingly, the
prize hasnt been given to each country equally, with five going to Denmark and four to Sweden, and only one, the first
one in 2002 given to Aki Kaurismkis The Man Without a
Past, going to a director from another country. At least until this year. But looking down over the list of nominations,
they are filled with famous Danes and Swedes like Lars von
Trier, Thomas Vinterberg (the only one to have won the prize
twice) Lukas Moodysson and Roy Andersson, while most
of the Icelandic and Finnish directors are somewhat less
known. Many years, its not too hard to guess which film will
win, as one film will have gotten much more prestige than
the others for instance, my money is on Roy Anderssons
Golden Lion winner A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence to grab the 2015 prize. Again this year, the
Danish and Swedish nominees got more attention than the
rest, both ending up being nominated for Best Film at European Film Awards. But all five nominees were very strong,
with no film leaping ahead of the pack on quality alone.
To start with the worst of the five films, Pirjo Honkasalos
Concrete Night is visually and aurally absolutely stunning,
but fails to fully connect. Shot in stark black and white halfway between Eastern European art film and Sin City, with a
multifaceted sound track of city-noises and classical music,
the world of the film is a masterful creation. 14-year old Simo
(Johannes Brotherus) dreams of train crashes and drowning,
lives in a flat with his mother and elder brother, and looks
out the window at feathers flying about and the creepy homosexual living in the opposite building. His wanderings
bring him to Orthodox churches, dingy bars and alleys, and
fog-filled forests, all given a dreamlike quality by the way
its filmed. The cinematography alone is very much worth
the price of admission. The problem is, though, that the film
is not about the amazing world that it creates, but specifically about how the 14 year old at the center is formed and
sculpted by this weird world around him. This means that for
every stunning shot of the Helsinki skyline seen from afar,
or the lights of a carnival at night, there seems to be a shot of
the face of young Simo, while he observes, considers, takes
it all in. It becomes a bit boring, and Simo himself is hurt by
this, as he is by design a blank slate waiting to be filled in by
his surroundings, and therefore is not a very interesting character in himself. Also, this is way too much weight to be put
on the shoulders of a young actor like Brotherus, and unfortunately he is not at all up to the task. He is not particularly
bad, but the role calls for him to be a screen on which everything else in the film could play out, and, like most other
actors his age Id guess, he cant do it. The other actors, like
Jari Virman as the cool elder brother Ilkka, who is going to
jail for a drug-related crime, or Juhan Ulfsak as the mysterious homosexual neighbour, merely need to be prototypes
that Simo can contemplate and consider, and they are great at
that, having the kind of faces that are immediately striking.
They are one with the world, as striking as the sandboxes or
the luminous jellyfish. But Simo is meant to stand apart, and
as he fails to uphold interest, a hole develops at the center
11
concrete night
of the film, which unfortunately holds the film
back from reaching its full potential. It is still
a very beautiful and interesting film, though.
Secondly, we have the Norwegian nominee, Eskil Vogts
Blind. Norway has been nominated for the Foreign Language Academy Award five times, and has quite a thriving
industry. However, it hasnt really had those big-name directors, like a Roy Andersson or a Nicholas Winding Refn,
to name two that werent nominated this year. This might
be changing, though. Specifically, Joachim Trier has caused
quite a stir internationally with his films Reprise and Oslo
31. August, both former nominees for this prize. Eskil Vogt
was the scriptwriter on those two films, but Blind is his debut feature. A witty examination of a woman named Ingrid
dealing with a sudden onset of blindness, the film definitely
shares a lot with a film like Oslo 31 August. As with that
film, this is a portrait of a person feeling apart from society, and also like the earlier film, this one includes a few
essay-like portions, where Ingrid explains what is like being blind. Shes also writing a story of three lonely people,
one of whom is her husband, which allows the film to touch
on such subjects as porn addiction in a segment which
might be more explicit than any part of Nymphomaniac
and the increase in distrust towards lonely men after Utya.
It also allows the film to do an assortment of visual tricks, as
Ingrid will change her mind about details of the story, mean-
12
ing a scene will change between being at a coffee place or

on public transport at a moments notice, confusing the poor
characters. I was probably rooting for this film, which has
the typical flaws of being a debut feature, but feels incredibly fresh. Its not really the best of the five nominees, but I
also thought it had the best chance of breaking the Danish/
Swedish stranglehold on the prize. Well, shows what I know.
Moving on to that stranglehold, Ruben stlund received his third nomination for Nordic Council Prize this
year, more than any of the other nominees. And yet, he
somehow still feels like an up-and-coming filmmaker.
Perhaps its because he is still establishing himself on the
world stage. Play from 2012 got some attention, but not
that much compared to Force Majeure, winner of the Jury
Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, and recipient of
many glowing reviews in USA when it was released over
there. Force Majeure feels like an arrival. Ruben stlund
is a master of using and exposing the geometry of modern
life, something also seen in the shopping-malls and train
carriages of Play, but the fancy hotel in Force Majeure is
almost certainly the most surreal hes ever gotten. The comparison between the endless snowy expanses and the welldressed Swedes on tiny lifts moving in straight lines says
almost everything. The weirdness of the complex system
creating controlled avalanches to clear the pistes. The family even has a drone for a toy. Like Play, the plot revolves
Force Majeure feels like an arrival, and Ruben stlund is a master of

using and exposing the geometry of modern life.
force majeure
around unfamiliar elements intruding on the lives of the
Swedish middle class. In Play it was immigrant children,
in Force Majeure its nature itself, in the form of a controlled avalanche, which causes the father Tomas to panic
and flee, leaving his wife and family behind. Nature has revealed the unmanly nature of Tomas, and the rest of the film
deals with the repercussions of this reveal. The film is milder than Play and much funnier. Tomas and his friend Mats,
who left his wife behind and now goes on vacation with a
much younger girlfriend, are somewhat pathetic, but mostly harmless. In some ways, it seems less brave than Play,
more easily palatable. Perhaps that was why stlund didnt
win his second Council Prize in three years. There can be
no doubt, though, that Force Majeure cemented stlunds
position as Swedens most interesting young(ish) director.
He might be the best in Scandinavia at filming architecture.
And then there is Lars von Trier and his Nymphomaniac.
What more is needed to say at this point? This film might have
been the international art-house sensation of the year, what
with the genius marketing, and the endless supply of new versions constantly keeping it in the public eye. At this point Lars
von Trier is firmly entrenched among the most well known
non-English-speaking director in the world. It is insane how
much attention has been given to what should by all means
be the least commercial thing Trier has ever done. 5 hours
in the Directors Cut which was also the one Ive watched
with so many callbacks to Triers own career that it could very
Previous Nordic Council Film Prize Winners

2013: The Hunt
Denmark | Director: Thomas Vinterberg
2012: Play
Sweden | Director: Ruben stlund
2011: Beyond
Sweden | Director: Pernilla August
2010: Submarino
Denmark | Director: Thomas Vinterberg
2009: Antichrist
Denmark | Director: Lars von Trier
2008: You, The Living
Sweden | Director: Roy Andersson
2007: The Art of Crying
Denmark | Director: Peter Schnau Fog
2006: Zozo
Sweden | Director: Josef Fares
13
Those Icelandic horses are famously diminutive in stature. And the sight of a proud middle-aged Icelandic man
on a small Icelandic horse never ever stops being funny
throughout the films run-time.
will be seen as a meta-movie about himself, and, of course,

filled with more explicit sex than most porn-films. And an argument could be made that its the best thing Trier has done
since The Kingdom back in the mid-nineties. The long version of this film is unlike almost any film ever made. Basically the story of a single long conversation between a nymphomaniac named Joe and an old virgin named Seligman,
the film is paced so uniquely, with digressions upon digressions ever shoving aside what little narrative momentum the
film ever builds up, creating a feeling more like reading an
old novel than watching a normal 2-hour movie. Fly-fishing,
the differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxism, what
kind of knot to make to hang somebody, the glory of Bachs
use of counterpoint. That last one is crucial. The whole
film is woven like a fugue, with themes, motives, genres
and characters travelling in and out of the story seemingly
at will. Whatever the many quite logical misgivings one
14
can have about Lars von Trier, its hard to deny this wasnt
the magnum opus of Scandinavian cinema in 2014, just in
grandiosity alone. However, the prize jury only considered
the four-hour version, which Im told didnt include some
essential scenes, and had a much more conventional pace.
And anyway, a film so flawed and divisive was never a surething winner anyway. And so, the prize went to a very surprising winner: Benedikt Erlingssons Of Horses and Men.
The slimmest and slightest of the films in the competition,
it is basically a rumination on the relationship between the
stout Icelandic man and his horse. Ill admit I didnt expect
much of the film, as I dont care much about horse-riding,
but Id forgotten about a crucial detail. Those Icelandic
horses are famously diminutive in stature. And the sight
of a proud middle-aged Icelandic man on a small Icelandic horse never ever stops being funny throughout the films
of horses and men
run-time. The opening scene is especially glorious, with a

middle-aged man dressing up in his finest horse riding outfit to visit the woman he has a crush on. The shots of him
on his trotting white horse with the mountains in the background is simply perfect cinema: Lines, movement, landscape and scale all adding up to a concise statement on Icelandic manliness. I wont spoil the punch-line to that scene,
though since its on the poster, it should not be hard to figure
out. The film never tops this glorious scene, but it contains
enough variations on the theme horse in water, horse in
snow, several horses in a row to hold interest throughout
the film. Its quite morbid, probably even a bit feminist. And
whenever a film can say this much, be so funny, with so little dialogue, its always worth sitting up and taking notice.
I would never have guessed Of Horses and Men would

win the prize, and honestly, it was probably only my fourth
favorite of the five films. But in some ways that makes its
win even more fitting for this great year of Scandinavian
Cinema: Only the fourth best of the nominees, but still a
completely deserving winner. And a debut feature, even,
pointing perhaps to an even better future. All in all, this year
the Nordic Council Film Prize did exactly what it should:
Showcased the diversity, energy and stunningly high quality of the best of Scandinavian filmmaking in the past year.
Of Horses and Men is available on DVD on Amazon.co.uk and shopicelandic.com
15
force majeure
16
in case of no emergency:
F o r c e M a j e u r e a n d t h e Bys ta n d e r C i n e m a o f R u b e n s t l u n d
words: erik anderson
If anything, its clear from Swedish filmmaker Ruben stlunds oeuvre that he enjoys watching people squirm. From
the characters in his movies to the audience itself, stlund
revels in eliciting protracted moments of discomfort. And
yet, these moments arent due to the typical cinematic purveyors of discomfort- high Hitchcockian suspense, or gruesome depictions of horror and violence. Instead, stlund
preys (with uncanny verisimilitude) on humanitys most banal behaviour; the moments where we werent at our best,
the moments where we were less than ideal, the moments
in hindsight that we wouldve liked to have back. And in
many ways, his latest film, Force Majeure, represents the
culminated pinnacle of this cinematic practice. Not only
does it incorporate many of the behavioural themes stlund has been exploring since his earliest work, but it also
never digresses from its topical focus, confidently engaging the audience thematically without ever fragmenting
or obscuring the narrative with overt formalism. Instead,
stlunds formalism in Force Majeure is more refined
and pristine than ever before, beautifully finding cinematic
harmony with the films content, while maximizing its dialectical ability. In short, it is his greatest work to date, and
seemingly one which hes been building towards for years.
Set in the French Alps, Force Majeure tells the story of a
nuclear family from Sweden on a ski vacation. Tomas, the
patriarch, has apparently been working too hard, and the trip
thus offers some much needed time with family- Ebba, his
wife, and their children Harry and Vera. Things go awry early however, when the crest of a controlled avalanche freakishly hurtles towards them at the resorts restaurant. Initially
incredulous to its impending arrival, Tomas bolts from the
table at the last second, leaving his wife and children to fend
for themselves. What follows is our witness to a painfully and
comically drawn out (masculine) identity crisis for Tomas.
were mostly expositions in courageous skiing, though they

certainly gave stlund experience shooting in the mountains, and led him back to film school where he began work
on his first feature, The Guitar Mongoloid (2004). The film
takes place a world away from the lives of jet-setting skiers, focusing instead on the preoccupations of people eking
along on the fringes of Swedish society. The titular character
at the centre of it all is a part-time child busker named Erik,
who smokes, cusses, and sings off-key bastardizations of
songs that he plays on his guitar. Compared with Force Majeure, The Guitar Mongoloid is extremely loose narratively, appearing more as a randomized documentary of various
people who stlund may-or-may-not know in a thinly veiled
Gothenburg. However, it does immediately lay out many of
the formalist and behavioural themes which stlund would
continue to refine throughout his work. Constructed as a series of vignettes fragmented into alternating tableaus of static, deep-focused shots, the film deals with such behavioural
themes as gang/group mentality (there is a group of teenage
boys who continually vandalize bicycles), masculinity, and
the responses of bystanders to events which threaten to push
them out of their respective comfort zones (such as the reactions of people on public transit to unruly passengers). stlund seems especially fascinated by the organic responses
elicited in such latter scenarios, and its easy to understand
why- theyre almost never in keeping with the idealized vision
we have of ourselves. Instead, these responses tend to show
our uglier or weaker sides just below our favoured facades.
Put another way, stlunds is like the cinema of the selfie we
didnt share. And yet because its cinema- its the video of us
taking the selfie we didnt share. He even captures such a moment in his second feature, Involuntary (2008), when two
teenage best friends pop gum and pose for the iSight camera
in their computer. They too will make their way onto public
transportation, drunkenly provoking other passengers.
In some respects, the setting of Force Majeure is a return

to where stlund first started out; cutting his teeth by making ski films in the 1990s (Free Radicals I & II). The films
stlunds proclivity for a static camera provides an air of

realist objectivity to his unfolding scenarios, documenting
any incidental escalation from start to finish. It also adds
17
to the discomfort of said scenarios, evoking the claustrophobic sense of being trapped therein. Indeed, the characters
are placed in situations they know theyll have to endure,
yet which they have no interest in being in. This is precisely
why stlunds continual use of public transit as an uncomfortable conduit works so well- almost everyone can relate
to feeling vulnerable on a bus when its between stops and
another passenger becomes belligerent. This ability to relate
makes the unfolding escalation of events all the more painful
for the characters and audience alike, as the characters have
no escape, and we the audience have no opportunity to look
elsewhere. We are resigned to sit through whatever the characters are resigned to sit through. And many of the scenarios
stlund depicts are not quite as vacuous as bad guitar playing or unshared selfies either. He often creates (or recreates)
slow-building incidents. The likes of which will sure to be
talked about by the character-participants for years to come.
One of the most unsettling incidents from Involuntary takes
place between a group of male friends on a boys camping trip. stlund tends to excel in depictions of the macho
bonding and horse-play of men; their micro-aggressions,
intimidations, jockeying, one-upmanship, homophobiacum-homoeroticism, and escalating pack behaviour. . In
the Involuntary scenario, as the booze flows and behaviour intensifies, we see a scene wherein four of the guys
walk past a field. One member, Olle, veers off to relieve
himself. When he does, party-animal Leffe chases Olle
into the field, joking that Olle is gonna get sucked.
While the homophobic bullying-as-a-gag is (unfortunately)
not all that unusual amongst such a group, Leffes tenacity
at chasing Olle down quickly crosses the line and becomes
all too realistic for Olle, who repeatedly admonishes Leffe,
effectively telling him to cease and desist. And yet, to the
laughter of the other guys -who are still taking Olles situational discomfort as a joke- Leffe does not. Tackling him
like a rugby player, Leffe enlists another one of the other
friends and they both hold Olle down in the field. stlund, of
course, never changes his framing. His shot is a static landscape tableau, taken from high afar, and remains motionless
throughout the entire ordeal, without cutting or using other
angles. At this point, it means that we cannot see exactly
what is happening, and yet at the same time, we are also
becoming very well aware: what we are watching constitutes rape. The forced oral-sex doesnt last long before Olle
18
breaks free and gets up running. The others, still assuming it

was all in good fun, merely interpret Olles exit as a sign he
took the joke too seriously and is now upset. However, we
as the audience are indignant- what weve just been witness
to was a crime, and yet its build up was eerily normalized.
Its the kind of transgressive behaviour which men tend to
shrug off as boys will be boys, (and Olle tries), but when
placed under sunlight is deeply troubling. Hence, stlunds
genius for its depiction is allowing the situation to unfold as
organically as it might in real life; making the audience somewhat complicit in the escalation as a witness; everyone is free
to see how at various steps in the build up to the incident no
one stopped to pull the proverbial alarm. Indeed, vignettes
like these are perfect illustrations in how events which seem
patently condemnable in hindsight (by outside/third parties)
always seem to have merely gotten out of hand to the people
actually involved. This is painfully clear when Olle tries to
explain what has happened to his girlfriend. He spends most
of the time playing things off, rationalizing, and confusedly
chuckling to himself, trying to decide whether the violation
and humiliation he feels is even worth making a fuss about.
Part of this too plays perfectly into the stigma of male-onmale sexual assault; not only does Olle have trouble taking
his own assault seriously, but his girlfriend, whos initially
taken aback by the weirdness of it, ends up chuckling about
it too, despite her moral misgivings. After all (they reckon),
it may have been upsetting and unwanted, but it was joke
fellatio, and despite having called his girlfriend to drive two
hours to pick him up, part of Olle clearly still feels a strong
pull to get over it and go back to have more fun with the gang.
One of the additionally interesting things in the assaulting tableau was that we could always keep tabs on the one
friend who kept his distance on the road, never participating in the incident. He represents one of stlunds signature bystanders who watches the incident unfold with
stunted recognition of whats happening,conflicted as to
what he should or shouldnt do. When Olle runs away, the
bystander begs the question- he was still laughing, right?
This stunted recognition-cum-reluctance to get involved
motif makes up the entirety of stlunds subsequent short
film, An Incident by a Bank (2010). In it, stlund recreates
a botched bank heist in Stockholm. The shot itself begins
as one of his regular static tableaus, yet this time stlund
in case of no emergency
He represents one of stlunds signature bystanders who watches the

incident unfold with stunted recognition of whats happening,conflicted
as to what he should or shouldnt do.
involuntary
becomes more active, zooming in and out, and panning to
different parts of the frame to isolate certain action and audio. This isolating technique is vaguely reminiscent of Robert Altmans roaming work, and travels mainly between the
klutzy robbers and two male friends who witness the incident in its entirety. The 11 minute film unfolds with the two
pals beginning to recognize a robbery is about to take place.
Yet, they do nothing to foil it, nor do they apparently even
call the police (though they confusedly discuss whether they
should). They merely keep their distance and watch the event
unfold like it was television; filming it for good measure on
one their phones. While even a description of these events
may offer a privileged black-and-white account in hindsight, stlund manages to relate the action of the bumbling
friends as entirely plausible to the viewer. Indeed, the viewer
is positioned to realize that they too may have acted the exact same way given the surreal nature and confusion of a
similar scenario in real life. This is easy to understand, as
stlund offers no prior narrative information to the viewer
and lets the action unfold in real time. In this way its a perfect formal exercise for stlund; another successful attempt
at procuring a bystanders reflection from the audience.
This increasingly active style of tableau-shot is also how
stlund opens his third feature, Play (2011). The film further examines male group mentality, but this time by way
of adolescents. Like The Guitar Mongoloid and Involuntary, stlund largely sticks to static frames, however, he
(generally) opens up his visual planes more, relying less on
obstruction and off-screen space, while allowing for more

direct visual recognition of his characters faces (there are
even a couple close-ups). He also begins to streamline his
narrative, picking one main scenario instead of using multiple fragmented vignettes, and digressing only sporadically
from the linear course of action. The effect is a more focused narrative, with a happier balance of form and content.
Inspired by court records of a good cop / bad cop game
practiced by a gang of teens in Stockholm between 20062008, Play depicts five teenage boys who effectively mug
three younger boys over the course of a day. The younger
boys initially try to evade the tailing gang, reaching parents answering machines and even asking for help at a
local caf, but yet again stlund masterfully depicts how
bystanders on the periphery of the unfolding events manage to neglect the situation, partially through their initial
lack of perception for the severity of the situation, and ultimately their disinterest in being involved and/or putting
themselves in harms way. This of course includes some
of stlunds requisite public transit scenes, including one
wherein a member of the gang gets beaten in full view of
other passengers for opting out of the continuing hustle.
However, beyond the greater openness of the cinematographic form, what progressed Play beyond stlunds
other work was the greater engagement with its thematic
complexity. As opposed to Involuntarys troubling, but
19
temporally limited vignettes, Plays singular narrative

gave stlund more room to dissect the inherent topical issue embedded in the protracted incident. And this was certainly called for, especially considering it was the kids from
(presumably) underprivileged origins, or disadvantaged
societal positions, who were depicted as the aggressors to
the meek and innocent visible-majority kids. Indeed, in
Play, the bullying gang of 5 were made up of black boys,
and the preyed upon group of three were made up of two
white native-Swedish boys and a boy of Asian heritage.
Considering that Sweden is one of the most active countries
in accepting immigrants and refugees in Europe, and has
also had its recent share of struggles with cohesion, the film
was bound to cause a stir. Its the kind of depiction which
progressives might worry could not-only perpetuate negative
stereotypes, but be used as fodder to increase xenophobia
(once the audience leaves the theatre). Yet, the scenario is
by no means implausible -any group of boys might pick on
any another group of boys with weaker numbers- and while
concerns of stereotyping are certainly understandable, the
film never becomes didactic. stlund is still more interested
in the verisimilitude and (universal) behaviouralism of the
event, again making it all uncomfortably relatable for anyone
whos ever been bullied by anyone else (regardless of race).
While the depiction brought controversy, what brought layered complexity was that stlund begins to integrate the inevitable controversy of the movie into the movie. This gets
dramatized in the film when one of the mugged kids (while
strolling with his father) spots one of the thieves. Informing
his father, the parent approaches the bully and accosts him,
physically grabbing hold of the boy and demanding the return
of his sons cell phone. While the audience is privy to the boys
guilt (on the micro level), the optics are immediately concerning on the macro level- a white male patriarch oppressing a young boy of colour. It reads almost like what stlund
might have been accused of were things not made more complicated. However, stlund does complicate them. The confrontation is witnessed by a female bystander and her friend.
And unlike most of stlunds bystanders thus far, the woman
involves herself, almost acting as an avatar for a progressive
audience who might cry foul over the films subject matter.
While the father defends his actions, and tries to dismiss her
by arguing she wasnt privy to the context of the precipitating
20
situation, she challenges him that immigrants already have

it twice as hard in Sweden, implying that any delinquent
behaviour on the part of the boy may have been understandable due to his (likely) victimization at the hands of society.
In a sense, the scene becomes a fascinating microcosm of a
larger argument taking place in many Western societies about
individual responsibility vs systemic discrimination- while it
may be true that the boy has been a troublemaker, is it his fault
or societys? Its likely nota coincidence that in the scene, the
protecting & nurturing voice is that of a female, and the voice
of individualistic responsibility is that of a male. These sorts
of stereotypical gender dynamics are played briefly in one
scenario at a school in Involuntary, and are again taken up
as a major point of interest in Force Majeure, with the actors
of Tomas and Ebba even bearing resemblance to the man and
woman arguing in Play. Regardless, her point is temporarily
heeded; the audience should refrain from any errant extrapolations. And yet, stlund isnt even content to leave it at that.
He adds a few more dialectical layers of complexity. One
of the next things we see is John, one of the bullied threesome, playing a new clarinet at a school talent recital. As
weve just gone from the bystanders pedagogical outlook of
systemic victimization of immigrants, being reminded of the
mild-mannered John (who is of Asian background) somewhat derails the broad reductionism of her argument. For
here we see another immigrant, as well adjusted as any of
his native-Swedish pals, totally integrated, excelling in class.
Were this to be the final word, it might certainly appear to be capping
(racist) statement by
the film. i.e. If not all Swedish immigrants behave the same
way, it cannot simply be society that is to blame for the
trouble making behaviour of the bullying boys. However,
it isnt the final word. Instead, when we see John playing
clarinet, we are also reminded that not only was his previous clarinet the most expensive item stolen, but John was
wearing the most expensive clothing at the time of the mugging (much is made of his coveted Diesel jeans), and now
of course, he has a new expensive replacement clarinet.
From this we can take away at least two things- the incident has left John no worse for wear (financially), and that
indeed, the intersectional factor of class might be playing a
critical role in the behaviour of the boys. Its the last note
play
21
in a complex depiction of events inspired by reality, and it

seeks to engage with any unwanted pronouncements of what
came before it in the film. Nonetheless, the films reception
was apprehensive, likely because so much of the narrative
was preoccupied with the uncomfortable incident itself before it delved to the appending debate. In Force Majeure
however, the post-incident debate is the bulk of the movie.
Indeed, despite being the longest and most focus narrative,
its the film with the shortest and most innocuous incident.
Its also the one thats grappled with the most after the fact.
Like Play, Force Majeure takes one incident-driven scenario and blows it up. Yet whereas Play still jumped back and
forth to a loosely related symbolic subplot about a babys
crib on a train, Force Majeure never digresses, making it
the most linearly appreciable and narratively honed feature
in stlunds oeuvre. Ironically, the same progressive viewers who had difficulty with Play will likely have an easier
time lapping up Force Majeure, for instead of the troubling
incident being undertaken by some young black teenagers,
the cross-hairs of depiction are now squarely aimed at the
emblem of privilege and systemic privilege- the white male
patriarch. At the very least, theres no doubt the female bystander near the end of Play would be loving Force Majeure, as the film plays as an eviscerating cross-examination
of a patriarchs actions. And like Play, part of makes it so
squeamishly effective is that stlund gives the audience full
witness to the unfolding events, thus allowing them to see
which side of the story (or the precipitating incident) is factually accurate. In other words, in Force Majeure we know
the wife is right about the husbands actions at the table during the avalanche. Those actions, of course, were to abandon
her and the children when the avalanche got too close. What
makes this such an extra fascinating scenario for stlund
is that normally the incidents in his films are instigated (or
escalated) by the characters themselves, whereas this time
around the catalyzing incident is an act of nature outside of
anyones control (hence the title Force Majeure). Thus, everyone would be a victim, except that in fleeing the scene,
Tomas effectually turns himself (and perhaps masculinity) into the proverbial bystander of the incident.
When Tomas returns to the table after the settling of the avalanche smoke, the impending waves of shame and guilt accom-
22
panying the realization of his own circumstantial cowardice

cause him to pretend like nothing happened. Or at least, that
is what he chooses to do. Unable to admit to himself how he
failed as a fatherly hero, he finds himself incapable to do the
same with his wife. And from there he makes things harder
on himself, digging a deeper and deeper hole of denial, while
inversely making any admission of guilt more and more unlikely. His wife, Ebba, shaken from the incident and upset at
his situational impotence, withdraws from him, opting to ski
alone. Not only is she quietly incensed by Tomass petulant
attempts at avoiding the truth, but one can also sense her attraction for him dwindling; her gendered expectations of Tomas as the familys white-knight hero having been demonstrably annulled. In her understandable need to vocalize her
thoughts on the matter, and perhaps to win sympathy for her
incredulity with Tomas, Ebba begins talking about the incident amongst third parties; cornering Tomas publicly, wherein he continues to deny, dismiss, and defend the allegations
of contractual -paternal- failure at the time of the incident.
This is all set against the backdrop of stlunds most dynamic
and lavish cinematography yet. It continues on the path he was
forging for himself in Play, wherein he opened up more shots
to subjective framing. While his wider landscape tableaus remain -elegantly showcasing the mountains without obstruction- there are more close ups and cuts than ever before, giving it the most intimate feeling of any of his work. This also
allows us greater access to the psychological states of the couple, as the mirror of satire gets held to the self-saving husband.
Tomass patronizing rhetorical methods by which he tries to
invalidate his wifes side of the story are bound to beautifully conform to (and affirm) any characterization of male
posturing. This posturing becomes even more farcical when
the couples visiting friend, Mats, attempts to diffuse the
situation. At first he offers a rational perspective, reminding the couple of the unpredictability of human reaction to
chaos. However, when Ebba uses Tomass iPhone video as
incriminating evidence of his guilt -the proverbial selfie he
didnt want to share- Mats goes so far as to offer Tomas a
fantastical alibi of fleeing the avalanche for the anticipatory
purpose of being free to dig the family back out. With Mats
girlfriend (Fanni) already sympathizing with Ebba, the optical gender lines are clearly drawn, making the men look
desperately pathetic in their attempts to save (Tomass)
face. This binary grouping further backfires on Mats,
when (having left Ebba and Tomass room) Fanni rhetorically asks what Mats would do in a similar situation.
It effectively takes the situation from being one about Tomass
inability to face his own cowardice to a question about masculinity in general.1 Mats (a divorced father) counters that he
would do anything for his kids. To which Fanni then makes
the point that if we was willing to do anything for his kidswhy was he on a ski trip with her? Its not a point that sits well
with Mats, who spends the entire night sleepless, belabouring
the quip and trying to defend his honour.2 Ultimately, it only
makes him appear unnecessarily defensive as well, playing further into the behaviouralism of the bruised male ego.
In an attempt to alleviate his friend from the pits of despair,
Mats encourages Tomas to let out a primal scream as therapy
on -where else than the last vestige of Nietzschian male solitude- the top of a mountain where no women can be seen for
miles. Tomas tries, but even the top of the world he finds he
cant hide from himself. Licking their wounds, the two men
hit the outdoor patio bar for a pint to bask in the sun. And for a
moment, Tomas experiences a small inflation of ego- a woman comes over to tell him that her friend thinks hes the hottest guy at the bar. Here stlund demonstrates his increasing
deftness at matching form and content; while the initial framing is a characteristic static tableau, stlund slowly zooms
towards the men in correspondence with their ego boost. The
effect is a playfully comedic one, especially considering the
woman sharply returns to take back the compliment, telling
Tomas she had meant someone else. With his compliment revoked and his masculine identity hanging in the balance, Tomas (or his psyche) is upended by the physical manifestation
of visual masculinity- a rowdy mob of bare chested frat boys
yelling, fist-pumping, dousing themselves in beer, pushing
and shoving each other in a club, and unleashing aggressive
primal screams that make Tomass earlier attempt look like
a sputtering puppy-yelp. Exhausted, emasculated, and with
no chance to dig himself back out of the hole hed already
dug, Tomas finally admits the truth to himself (and Ebba);
breaking down in a blubbering pile of tears, his ego obliterated, the facade of his cultivated identity shattered, and
his existential cries sounding like those of a wailing childs.
For those ready to chalk the entire episode up as a simple

critique of masculinity, stlund again has other things in
mind. Like Play, he muddies the waters to avoid any overly
didactic interpretation. First there are some minor heroics by
Tomas on the familys last ski run when Ebba, skiing at the
rear of their chain, gets stuck up the hill in the blinding conditions. Tomas runs up the hill after her, and brings her back
down, gallantly carrying her in his arms. Shes no worse for
wear once reunited with the kids, and casually marches back
up the hill to fetch her skis; implying that at the very least,
Tomas happily overcompensated by unnecessarily picking her up (if the whole thing itself wasnt partially staged
by the parents).However, in the final scene, with all parties
aboard the departing coach, yet another threatening situation presents itself: still high in the mountains, driving on
winding narrow roads down an uncomfortably steep mountainside, the coach driver proves incompetent, repeatedly
perching the vehicle precariously close to the edge of the
abyss. With most passengers beginning to worry, though still
remaining generally calm (including Tomas), Ebba proves
herself to be jumpy, demanding the bus driver let her off.
He does, and Ebba hops off the coach without her children.
The moment isnt made to be a protracted or precious one,
but its no accident on stlunds part, and is thus a noteworthy one. Then with another lurch of the coach, the rest of
the passengers begin to panic, beginning a dangerous stampede for the door. With chaos ensuing, Mats proves true to
his earlier projected image of himself, acting in the stereotypically selfless and heroic manner expected of a man in
an emergency- he keeps his cool and impedes the stampede
when he authoritatively commands that women and children be allowed off the bus first (and everyone in a single
file). While the moment might be taken as a small vindication for manhood, this too would be facile read of the film,
because considering Ebbas somewhat contradictory action,
the coach incident acts more as an indication of Mats earlier
hypothesis that nobody knows for sure how theyll respond
in a given crisis situation when survival mode kicks in.
This seems to echo stlunds own thoughts on the matter. Indeed, in early press for the film, stlund has said
just that- nobody knows how theyll react.3, 4 Moreover,
his read doesnt seem to be as much a critique of masculinity, rather than a commentary on gendered expectations
23
force
majeure
24
of masculinity. In particular, stlund describes how people
have come to expect men to act in certain situations, and
when they fail to live up to those expectations, it can be
confusing and detrimental for relationships. He cites research suggesting that divorce rates tend to spike after airplane hijackings.5 And certainly, it looks as though things
for Ebba and Tomas are headed in that direction, as one
cant imagine how Ebba in particular will regain her respect
for Tomass masculinity, and thus, her attraction for him.
And yet, all this for what? Nothing has happened. Everyone
in the family is safe. To accentuate this paradoxical point,
stlund was apparently going to have the subtitle: In Case
of No Emergency written under the films main title, Force
Majeure.6 Indeed, no emergency has actually taken place
in the film. And Tomas is by all accounts a good, modern father, who dotes on his children with sensitivity and warmth.
He may have acted impulsively in a freak occurrence,
but it doesnt mean he doesnt love his wife and children.
And while the methods with which he rhetorically tried to save
himself may ring stereotypical bells of patriarchal posturing,
desperately attempting to save oneself from soul-crushing
guilt is not the exclusive territory of masculinity. Thus the fissures created by Tomass momentary lapse of heroism only
really exist in the minds of he and Ebba. But its their reactions
to his hiccup which will ultimately hurt the children, as Ebba
and he will be alright, even if they go their separate ways.
The children on the other hand, are likely to be more affected.
And stlund tries to remind us of this along the way, showing the budding resent of the kids to the adults, along with
the parental negligence cause by adults self-absorption. The
kids begin to spend more time on their iPads and watching television than they do skiing. They hold each other in
tears while their parents fight. Theyre given ice cream to eat
when their parents wake up hung over after drunken rows.
Theyre shoved into their hotel room with the housekeeping man when the adults are preoccupied, etc. Indeed, they
are the victims in this non-emergency. Harry even vents his
displeasure by flying his drone into the living room when
things are getting uncomfortably tense between the adults.7
However, stlund allows for a glimmer of hope. Tomas,

having cried himself anew, is seen to take his first steps
of a fresh start. In a subtly symbolic end to the film, one
of the fellow passengers -now walking alongside Tomas
and Harry- offers Tomas a smoke. Tomas, still instinctually adhering to his trained mode of facade-friendly paternal moralism, declines the cigarette in front of his son.
And then, embracing his born-again self-honesty, recants
and asks for the smoke after all. Harry, clearly never having seen this before (which is also to say, Tomas has likely
spent his childrens lifetime concealing his smoking habit)
asks his father if he smokes, to which Tomas admits, both
to Harry and himself, Yes, I do. Its a small moment on
the screen, but a significant moment of self-affirmation for
the father. They walk on with the rest of the buss passengers -men, women, and children- everyone in it together.
Its a fitting and sublime end to stlunds most accomplished
narrative film; a film which works as the culmination of all
his cinematic output thus far. From The Guitar Mongoloid
through to Force Majeure, stlund has refined his formalistic approach to cinema, while honing his ability to functionally elicit the kind of awkward bystander reflection from
the audience that he so desires. Meanwhile, his thematic examinations have grown more complex and challenging as he
streamlines his narratives to give what were once vignettes
their full breadth on-screen. His is a cinema of humans acting in ways which undermine their ideal self-images. The
films can be disquieting and discomforting, forcing reflections of ourselves which wed normally avoid given the
chance. Its the cinema of the selfie we didnt share, and at
the ripe old age of forty, stlund has seemingly perfected it.
Indeed, with Force Majeure he reaches an exclusive echelon of filmmakers, for hes just made his first masterpiece.
Force Majeure is appearing

in cinemas all over the globe,
so check your local theatre
for more information. No
DVD has been announced,
though cdon.se are selling a
book of the film. Ostlunds
otehr films are available to
purchase internationally.
25
1864:
Denmarks Largest National Trauma is more Traumatising on film

than in real life
1864
26
The popularity of Danish Drama

words: sandra fijn van draat
1864
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

I have had a free hand on this project. In one way, I am a bit like
Stanley Kubrick. He is also one of the few directors who have had
a free hand. And such is a rarity in 2014, where the money for
films and series do not grow on trees.
- Ole Bornedal
In 2010 while Ole Bornedal was working in Paris, he was contacted by

DRs head of Drama Ingolf Gabold about making a film about 1864. A
film with inspiration from the two books by Tom Buk-Swienty Slagtebnk Dybbl1 and Dommedag Als2. A fiction-drama that four
years later would cause real-life drama in the Danish society, by being the most expensive and most maligned TV-series of all times. The
TV-series premiered in Denmark the 12th October 2014, to mark the
150 years event of the biggest national trauma of Denmark a trauma
where the Danes lost their power and became the state we now today.
Which year are we in, Bornedal?

The first three episodes were more in the Danish social-realistic style, taking the young confused teenager Claudia in consideration in the present
time-line. Claudia has a hard time finding herself as a person, as well as
having a true passion for something after her brother died in the war in Afghanistan. After dropping out of several schools and temporarily jobs, the
municipality informs her that its time to stop helping her. But they give
her a last job offer. A job as a house-help for the old landowner, Baron
Severin. On his estate she finds Inges old diary, a diary that is the linking
the present to the events of 1851 and ahead.
The first episode is mostly dealing with the presentation of the different
characters, and their internal relations. In the re-telling of the old events,
the most important and normal characters are Inge, Laust and Peter. They
also carry the most important non-war part in the story, namely the triangle drama about who will win Inges heart. Laust and Peters father were
seriously injured after the successful three-year war. The father dies in
the end of the first episode, and that is the starting point for them to voluntary join the army and eventually fight the big 1864 battle later on.
In the first episode we are in the year 1851, 13 years before the war.
Laust and Peter are growing up in a poor, but yet safe family, working on the local goods. In these years Denmark is still living high on
the 3-year-war success and the Danish nationalism and faith are growing intensely. Both of the brothers are interested in the beautiful tomboy Inge , and a rare and beautiful friendship with her is established.
In the mean-time, the political powers are discussing their future visions for the German part Slesvig - strictly against the peace-treaty.
27
In the second episode we follow Laust, Peter and Inge growing up. They are being influenced by the traveling gypsies
on life outside of Denmark, and they all feel a connection
to this world outside. The strong persuasive, and genetical
crazy politician Monrad is creating a national euphoria in the
Danish parliament, when he is talking about the integration
of Slesvig. Even though this will create a war. Both Laust
and Peter are in love with Inge, but Inge is in love with them
both. But they have to say goodbye, when they are joining the Danish army, in the honour of their fathers name.
In the third episode Monrad is creating a new constitution
which integrates Slesvig in the Danish kingdom. A constitution that creates drama and a war declaration from Preussen. In
the army Laust and Peter meets their young soldier colleagues,
and it finally occurs to them how consequential war can be.
In the mean-time a special bond between Inge and Laust is
happening, and they are sending letters to each other secretly.
In the fourth episode Peter and Laust are reaching Dannevirke, where they meet the new captain a familiar face
from the domestic goods, but not exactly a happy reunion. Laust and Inge continue their secret exchange
of letters but a wrongly delivered mail creates serious
breach in the relationship of the inseparable brothers.
Dannevirke proves nearly as impregnable as it has prided
itself on, and General De Meza decides against Copenhagens
willingness to make a withdrawal from Dannevirke to Dybbol.
You are a Dead man walking Bornedal till The Danes

are blushing
When you are creating the most expensive TV series in Denmark of all time, it is not only up to the most pretentious
film-critics to review it, but also to the whole population as
well. Especially when you are taking national-trauma and
historical events into consideration. If it were only about the
historical credibility and the quality of the drama, but apparently 1864 created much more debate, apart from the TVshow, than any other show has ever done before. And why?
Because of the media license fee3. A fee all Danes regardless of having a television or not, have been forced to pay
since public television was born. And the Danes do not like
to pay their license fee. The discussion has not only been
about the plot of the series, but 1864 has also been a sym-
28
bol for something evil an evil thing as the license fee. In

Denmark we dont joke about the license fee, we put it of
for a debate whenever we get the chance. Is there a better
chance when we are watching a television drama, that has
been the most expensive of all times? I already feel pity for
Bornedal. The Danish movie-magazine Ekko officially announced Bornedal with the title Dead man walking, even
though they gave him 5 out of 6 stars. This, was the best
review among all newspapers for the first episode. They are
comparing the historical events in 1864 with rape. A rape
of the Danish greatness and glory, and the psychological
rape of the soldiers and the inhabitants mind-set - about
being an undefeated state. I feel the review is a rape of my
mind. The overall review seems a bit mixed in its tone, and
its hard to figure out whether they actually do like the series, or they only can see a future potential in it. Especially,
when they take the political and historical events credibility, much more into consideration than the actual drama.
The Danish newspaper Ekstra bladet gave the second episode two stars. They proclaimed that the Danes and the critics are too much focused on the credibility of the historical
and political events and that they stopped thinking about
the story-line and plot. A plot they think that disappoints and
a plot they say that the Danes are not worth of. Because the
Danish people are not stupid and we dont need to get the
same point twice right after each other. For the 3rd episode
Berlingske tidende compared Bornedal with a balloon
artist. A balloon artist that is only blowing up balloons for
himself, so he can destroy them again afterwards. They are
proclaiming like Ekstra bladet that he is repeating himself too much, and the series occurs like a silent film. They
say that you can easily take the volume off, so easy is the
plot. But the most important point that all of the critics came
with for the 3rd episode was where hell is the war? Its a
general opinion for the 3rd episode, that everybody is bored
and that we need to stop the melodrama and start the war.
In the 4th episode the slow melodrama stopped, and the cold
and harsh war began. This episode got mixed reviews as
well, but an interesting review about his episode is from the
newspaper BT. They say that Denmark is blushing, and
Bornedal is moving. They gave him five stars in their review, and announce that the wars seriousness and depth that
have been missing so far, is not only being completed in the
4th episode, but is a beautiful extension of the drama so far.

1864
1864
Visually ground-breaking
Taking the visual expression into consideration - there is only
one word, that can describe the overall style in the series and
that is Ground-breaking. Its not only ground-breaking because of the style itself - because weve been watching it from
America for decades. Its ground-breaking because we finally
dare to do it in Denmark. As a person that has been watching a
lot of Danish movies and series throughout the time, its a relief
that somebody finally dares to break the social realistic style
with too many close-ups and reaction shots. Innovative compositions, a general total-frame tendency and use of steady-cam -
it is a gift to the series overall look. The colour grading is wisely chosen for the series and the dark, cold and realistic colours
for the events in the 1860s are giving the series an older look,
which is a big contrast to the 2010s events where the visuals
have much more light, colours and warmth within the picture.
The visual impression is art in itself, so therefore its a shame
that sometimes the visual beauty overshadows the storyline. But
on the other hand its important that the visual aspect works, because then we can be tempted to ignore the missing dramaturgy.
29
No war without drama: Understand the history

One thing I find shocking, is that nobody really understand the historical events 1864 are about.
The series have been more discussed than any other thing
the last couple of weeks. Everybody has his own opinion
about the drama, acting, the director and of course the
value of the series. But it seems to me, that nobody in my
generation knows what this war is about. They know that
it was the biggest national-trauma in the Danish history,
they know that thousands of soldiers died and that the war
meant that Denmark lost its greatness forever. But what
they dont know is which war we were fighting. Many
people have said to me it is the 1864-war. Well thats not a
war, 1864 is the year where the war events were happening.
The concrete war and battle that the series take in consideration is The Second Schleswig War. This particular
war was the second military conflict, about SchleswigHolstein matter. The war was fought between Prussia
and Austria, and then in Denmark from 1st of February
1864 till the 20th July 1864. The key battle of the Second
Schleswig War was The Battle of Dybbl4. It occurred
on the morning of the 18th April 1864 following a siegestarting on 7th April. Denmark suffered a severe defeat
against Prussia which decided the outcome of the war.
The Danish defeat of the war meant loosing several soldiers, loosing our patriotism and loosing Holstein, Lauenburg and Schleswig5 all the way up to the Kongecreek.
To get a full impression of the Second Schleswig war, you
have to look into the history books and not focus exclusively on the series. Its important to distinguish between
facts and fiction, because the series is not a documentary but fiction. It is indeed inspired by true events, but
spiced up with extra drama to fictionalise it and sell it.
a map of the war in 1864

30

1864
not promising Bornedal a happily ever after, Im just saying

that on the other side of the media-storm there CAN be gold.
No Kubrick nor Bergman

Though you can be tempted to compare 1864 with the period
drama Barry Lyndon Ole Bornedal will still never be like
Stanley Kubrick. He is known for his overuse of elaborating
his themes and stories too much. As a script-writer he is not
clear enough in his intentions, neither within the series nor
with drama. Weve come a long way since his epic horror-film
Nightwatch but its not necessarily a good way. He thought
himself that Nightwatch was a brilliant movie, but he never
expected the success it would get, nor that it would represent
the horror genre. I dont know if he got megalomania after
that success and thinks that he can still live on that success,
but one thing is for sure; the script is not a masterpiece without
effort. He had a rough childhood, where he fantasised about
two new fathers to compensate his own fathers absence. His
personal preferences were Sean Connery and Ingmar Bergman. They represent themes that he found existentially in
films. Themes like brutality and kindness, muscle and brain,
sex and charm and seduction. Though its an interesting
passion for the different themes, Bornedal will never be as
charming as Connery or as intelligent as Bergman. But he
is indeed talented, intelligent and charming in his own way.
Still hope for the future

Taking the audience-shares in consideration, there has been
a clear decreasing tendency. In the beginning 1.7 million
viewers were watching, but already for the fourth episode
600.000 were lost. It has probably something to do with the
slow-melodrama beginning. The people want to see war, intense fights and big beautiful battles. Therefore it is a lot to
expect from the viewers, that they should keep watching after the first 3 episodes - and still no war. But what I think can
happen in the future is, that when the whole media-storm settles and we have had some time to reflect about the series it
could become a heritage success. Like the epic drama Matador. In the beginning it received horrible reviews, and now
the drama has been rebroadcasted several times with a huge
audience-shares every time. Furthermore, this series is considered as being masterpiece within Danish heritage. So Im
Bravest man walking?

Ole Bornedal is literally dead man walking. Not only because hes been having the film-critics, historians and politicians eyes on him since the premiere but also because
hes got the whole Danish population against him. But after that conclusion, he is also one of the bravest filmmakers
and writers of our time. He dared to take the challenge up,
a challenge about a historical event that were still dealing
with today . So I would like to go against the storm, and
announce that even though I dont support his plot entirely
I would still dare to call him The bravest man walking.
Because when you look at Bornedal, you look at an artist, not
a historian. An artist who got the job and a free hand to interpret true historical events. An artist who saw the historians as
guides, but not as a complete result. So, if you want to learn
people about the real facts around The Second Schleswig: borrow a book on the library! If you want to watch visual groundbreaking art while getting an idea of the events: watch 1864.
At the moment it feels like the series is more traumatising
on television, than it actually was in real life. Not because
of the historical events that I know will happen, but because
of the fictionalised events I didnt expect. Like the rape of
both a cow, a gypsy and later on my psych. I still have
a hope for the series, and I see potential in it. I have only
been taking four episodes into consideration. Four beautiful
episodes, but all episodes without a clear tone about what
we should focus on. I think that the visual aspects are stunning and some acting convincing. But the plot in itself is
too overambitious, therefore Im getting confused too often
and find it hard to figure out what to focus on. Im looking forward to watch the last four episodes. Hopefully it
will give a more nuanced view on the series by taking all
of the episodes and the overall experience in consideration.
1864 will be having its UK premiere in December

2014 on BBC4. You can find 1864 on www.dr.dk in
Danish without subtitles. It is also available online
for purchase, but no English-subtitled DVD release
has been mentioned.
31
1864:
whats with all the
characters?
From the beginning 1864 has been ambitious. Not only because of the budget, the
director, the historical events but also by
choosing a huge cast of characters. It is
intensely enough to understand the drama between Inge, Laust and Peter but its
even harder to understand so many different characters and their wants and needs,
when you have so many different plots to
follow. This reminds me of the epic series
The Wire not because of its beautiful drama, but because it is a series that demands
something from their audience. It challenges them to remember, do their homework
and to give their own effort in order to understand the story-line and the characters.
And were it works for The Wire, because
its aiming for a special, diverse and passionate audience it doesnt work for Mr and
Mrs Denmark because its hard to follow.
There are too many plots going on at one
time, which makes its hard for the audience
to create a bond and follow the characters.
They thought they were going to watch a
series about war, not a huge character cast.
It is important to distinguish between
the characters from the present timeline, and the past time-line. I will take
the most important characters in consideration for the first 4 episodes.
32
sofie boussnina
bent mejding
Claudia, present time-line 2014 (Sarah Sofie Boussnina)
Baron Severin, present time-line 2014

(Bent Mejding)
As a character she reminds me of a

constantly-ticking time bomb. She
occurs extremely provocative and in
general annoying - with her passion
for joints, social support benefits and
heavy eye-makeup. You might say she
is a typical example of a young Danish
cash benefit recipient, whose primary
purpose is to take as much from the
state as possible. I feel quite embarrassed about this stereotype, and I think
its too easy and a vague move from
Bornedal to boost such a weak stereotype. But well, when that is said I see
a strong possibility for her to grow as
a character throughout the series and
by removing her eye make-up, piercings and her bad attitude in general
you can regain a nice person. Though I
see potential in her as an actor in general, she annoys me and in someway I
do not feel convinced with her acting.
Maybe its because I dont believe in
the character, that I feel the way I do.
But I think its a shame that she got
this stereotyped role, because she was
growing as an actor outside the series.
He is almost 100 years old, about

to die and all by himself on a major
goods. He is too strong-armed to leave
his mansion but to weak to take care
of himself. He gets help from Claudia, and together they reconstruct the
events of 1864 through Inges diary.
I get goose-bumps from his acting.
He is amazingly cast and a gift to
the series. Despite he is 77 years old
in real life, he is playing the old man
confident and with authenticity. He has
come far since the womaniser-character in the heritage series Matador.
From the mayor-role in The Killing
till a blind cripple, that shits his own
pants suddenly is acting at its best.
jens lassen and jakob oftebro

Brothers, Peter and Laust past timeline 1850s till 1860s (Jens StterLassen and Jakob
Oftebro)
Giving Peter (Stter-Lassen) the opportunity for his biggest role so far,
was a wise move from Bornedal. His
sensitivity, intelligence and personality are his strongest features and makes
his inner character richer than his outer. Obviously in contrast to his older
brother Laust (Oftebro) who is the
toughest and the most masculine of
those two, both on the inside and the
outside. Both actors are playing truthful to their characters personalties.
pilou asbaek
nicolas bro
Didrich, past time-line 1850s till

1860s (Pilou Asbk)
Bishop Monrad, past time-line 1850s

till 1860s (Nicholas Bro)
Pilou Asbk is playing the Antihero Didrich who is raping gypsies,

cows and his own mind in order to
survive. Though Asbk has crazy
eyes that matches a crazy person I
dont like him in the series. He has
been used too much in television
lately in such small amount of time,
which makes his character unreliable.
The bishop is portrayed as a character

with lunatic genes. He is the key-person that brings Denmark into war, by
being a strong proponent for the Danish nationalism and by being a rhetorical and political genius. His worst enemies are not the Germans but his own
crazy self, that can bring him into the
crazy house where almost everybody
from his family has been. Nicholas Bro
is a safe choice, and my favourite actor
He plays convincingly with his theatrical competencies, despite Bishop
Monrads character as interpreted
by Bornedal might appear as fake.
If you would like to learn more about the Second

Schleswig War, you can find these books online:
- Jesse Russell Ronald Cohn, Second Schleswig
War, Published by Books on Demand in 2012
- Michael Embree, Bismarcks First War: The
Campaign of Schleswig and Jutland 1864, Published by Helion and Company in 2006
33
mads mikkelsen
a c e l e b r at i o n o f a l m o s t t w o d e c a d e s o f
fa n ta s t i c a c t i n g
mads mikkelsen
34

mads mikkelsen
words: paulo antunes

For the last issue of the magazine for the year 2014, I would
like to mention a name of which much has been written along
these six editions of Cinema Scandinavia. Well, this personality that I want to speak about, has shone in recent years on the
big screen, and has elevated the name of the cinema from the
corner of Europe to all the corners of the world. This man, this
actor, who Ive not yet mentioned (many may already be guessing who it is) is nothing less than the great Mads Mikkelsen.
Mads Mikkelsen dispenses great presentations for great
lovers of the seventh art; this name is undoubtedly synonymous with success. But lets start at the beginning.
On the 22nd of November 1965 in sterbro, one of the
ten districts in Copenhagen, Denmark, Mads Mikkelsen is
born. He is the son of Bente Christiansen and Henning Mikkelsen, and the younger brother of actor Lars Mikkelsen,
and the two have crossed paths on the set of the film Flame
and Citron (2008) and the Danish television series Rejseholdet (2002). He is married to actress and choreographer
Hanne Jacobsen, and he has two kids. Mads Mikkelsen has
been in the business for 18 years between cinema, television series, or animated films, with several papers and striking characters, the Danish actor is truly a chameleon actor.
I say chameleon, because it seems to be easy for him to wear
the skin of Tony, a drug dealer in Pusher (1996) and Pusher
II (2004), Allan Fischer, a detective inspector in the television series Rejseholdet (2000-2004), Lucas, a kindergarten
teacher who is accused of pedophilia in Jagten (2012), Ivan
a priest in Adams Apples (2005), two villains Le Chiffre
in 007: Casino Royale (2006) and Rochefort in The Three
Musketeers (2011), or so to do a forensic psychiatrist at the
same time is a serial killer with skills to cannibalism and
cooking, Dr. Hannibal Lecter (a character that was immortalised by Anthony Hopkins in the film Silence of the Lambs
(1991)), television series Hannibal (2013-present). And besides these there are many more exciting performances that
certainly remained in memory of those who saw his films.
year after year, film after film. A career that has the icing on
the cake with his impeccable and monstrous interpretation in
the film Jagten, in which he won one of the most prestigious
awards an actor can get, the Cannes Festival Award for Best
Actor in 2012 in my opinion this award is to cinema as the
FIFA Balloon dOr is to football. But it was not the fact of
having won this award that made him get more movies after
that, no no, it just gave recognition for his work and talent
over the years as an actor. As we can see in 2006, he entered
the 007 club and did a magnificent job next to Daniel Craig
to play the main villain, Le Chiffre, a banker who services
many of the worlds terrorists, a mathematical genius and expert chess player and uses these skills when playing poker.
Mads Mikkelsen is a remarkable actor, full of great talent
with tremendous versatility, or otherwise he could not play
so many different characters. I am an avowed admirer of
this actor. The feeling that gets us after knowing their job is
much like that feeling of someone who is in love and feels
a kind of butterflies in their belly, is superb the way how
he grabs your character. The first contact I had with Mads
was in the film Adams Apples (2005) and I was just fascinated with that priest and the man who gave him life, then
the same happened in Valhalla Rising (2009), Flame and
Citron, De Grnne slagtere (2003), Efter brylluppet
(2006) or in Jagten, and the same will happen in any other.
So I leave here strongly expressed for those who have
not yet had the privilege of seeing Mads Mikkelsen in action, to do, but to do already, because there is a lot to lose.
It is said that Mads Mikkelsen joined the rhus Theatre School
to study drama, but was more interested in being a dancer. I
dont know if the dance world lost a great dancer, but surely the
cinema world would be poorer if he continued down this way.
I also take the proximity of the date of this issue
with the date of your birthday. I would like to congratulate your forty-ninth birthday and to continue
for many more years to delight us on the big screen!
Their debut, i.e. its first major appearance in the cinema is

made by the hand from Danish director Nicolas Winding
Refn in Pusher, this was the film together with his great talent
which opened doors for a great career that has been building
35
matador
the legacy of matador

words: piers ford
Given the succession of iconic series that have swept
across the international broadcast landscape in the
last three years, an innocent bystander could be forgiven for assuming that Danish television drama
sprang into the world, fully fledged, in January 2011.
Thats when a BBC executive took a punt on a dark murder
story with a complex female lead character, slipped it into
BBC4s Saturday night schedule. And the rest is history.
The Killing had actually aired in its home country four years
earlier. But suddenly, it was launched on a global trajectory: Nordic Noir went mainstream as a genre, Sarah Lunds
jumper went viral and the way was paved for Borgen,
The Bridge, along with Swedens Wallander and Arne
Dahl, to enjoy all-conquering success as wider audiences
woke up to the creative depth of Scandinavias TV talent.
The tide now seems unstoppable as The Legacy and 1864
take their place in the winter schedules, promising new, Danish twists on psychological and historical drama, respectively.
36
The sense that it all began with The Killing has been reinforced by the occasionally self-congratulatory delight of foreign programme buyers at discovering
this rich cultural seam and bringing it to our attention.
In fact, as studies such as Patrick Kingsleys entertaining How
to be Danish make clear, The Killing was in many ways just
another staging post in a revolution in Danish television drama production which had long been underway a revolution
inspired to a great extent by the success of the Dogme cinema movement during the mid-1990s, which gave more clout
to directors and screenwriters. Programme makers had also
started looking for ways to exploit the multi-layered narrative techniques and psychological complexities of successful
long-running US drama series in their own ideas and concepts.
This might sound like a reaction to the conventions and parochialism of more traditional Danish television drama which
had gone before. But ask a Dane to name the programme
which nails the national character most accurately, and it
is quite likely that they will bypass the modernism of cult
1864 (2014-)

crime drama and the stylish economy of 21st-century family sagas, and wax lyrical about a series that dominated
television viewing between 1978 and 1981: Matador.
At first glance, the psychological depth and realism of the inter-generational relationships which unravel in The Legacy
or indeed the sense of profound emotional damage that defines Sarah Lunds character might seem light years away
from the more generic tropes explored in Matador, the story
of a provincial town between the Depression and the slow
post-war years of recovery. But the fact that the nation still
heaves a huge, nostalgic sigh whenever it is reshown suggests that its own legacy is still too potent to be disregarded.
Matador, too, was revolutionary in its time. Translated as
Monopoly, it tells the story of Mads Andersen Skjern,
a puritanical entrepreneur, who arrives in the fictional regional town of Korsbk, upsetting a host of apple carts
and undermining the towns clearly defined social, commercial and financial order. This one-man capitalist invasion is overtaken by the German occupation as the Second World War advances, heralding a period of rapid
change and mixed fortunes for a rich cast of characters.
Created by the distinguished journalist Lise Nrgaard,
who also wrote many of the 24 episodes, and directed by
filmmaker Erik Balling, Matador was a ground-breaking
co-production between national broadcaster DRs entertainment department and Nordisk Film. DRs drama department took a superior view of serial drama at the time,
considering single plays to be a more legitimate creative
focus. But while some of the nations broadsheet critics
shared that disdain, Matador was an instant popular hit.
It was the first real thing that brought Danes together in
front of a television screen, says Professor Ib Bondebjerg,
from the University of Copenhagens Department of Media,
Cognition and Communication. It has been broadcast seven
times and each time has been almost as popular as the first
time round. It seems that Matador resonates with an older
audience but it also picks up a new audience whenever it
is shown again. People know the scenes and characters so
well, and some of the most famous lines have passed into the
language. Today, its a monument. You cant touch it and everybody agrees that it has a unique place in Danish culture.
If the producers of 1864 were hoping that a historical drama

focusing on an equally important period in Danish history,
when the modern nation began to emerge from the wreckage
of the Second Schleswig War, would enjoy a similarly affectionate reception, they must be disappointed by the heated
debate that has greeted the series. The jury is still firmly out
on its status as a landmark production. As Bondebjerg says,
1864 treats its subject with seriousness some have suggested earnestness which lacks Matadors lightness of touch.
Matadors use of gently comic moments to leaven individual social and financial conflicts, themselves often metaphors for more universal threats to traditional Danish ways
of life the quintessential clash between old-fashioned
attitudes and modern ideas - is one of the keys to its longevity; it was made at a time when many people still remembered the age in which it was set. And Nrgaards
Korsbk, a thinly disguised version of Roskilde, her childhood home, was the perfect setting for essentially domestic
events to reflect the national tensions caused by the German occupation and the ongoing modernisation of society.
Film historian Peter Schepelern, who is also an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen,
says it was clearly inspired by the popularity of British serial dramas Upstairs Downstairs and A Family at
War when they were first shown on Danish television.
Im sure these were also in the perspective of Lise Nrgaard and Erik Baller, just as Lars Trier was later influenced by Twin Peaks when he made The Kingdom, says
Scheperlern. In the 1970s and 1980s, we didnt see very
much US television in Denmark because the programme
buyers thought it was vulgar. So Matador was certainly a
result of the idea of trying to do with our history what the
British had done with theirs, in terms of television drama.
If that is the case, the parallel between Matadors role
as a prism for new dramatic influences, and the way current successes such as The Killing and The Legacy reflect the influence of cutting edge US television drama, is
easy to see. In some respects, Matador is a time capsule
which keeps on giving up its treasure even when, as Schepelern says, the nation has been filled to the neck with it.
37
It has been released in every format, even given

away with magazines, but a million people will still
sit down and watch the reruns in their living rooms.
Matador was the last really successful piece of national
identity fiction, he says. When it was first shown, some
people criticised the way new ideas were depicted. But today, it seems somehow to trigger a simple picture of the
past that arises in our minds. The same is true of Krniken
[Better Times], which Stig Thorsbe created ten years ago
and picks up the story of how modern Denmark evolved.
As Schepelern explains, the idea was not to make a continuation of Matador, but to connect a fictional family
saga with the bigger picture of Danish society, using the
early days of the DR television network as a narrative vehicle. It was a brilliant concept which worked very well,
revealing how the country developed in the post-war years
up to the time it joined the Common Market, he says.
Matador had strong elements of folk comedy, and a simplicity
that contrasts strongly with contemporary Danish dramas. The
most obvious difference is that we now have much more complexity in the psychology of the characters, says Schepelern.
In The Legacy, you have a kind person who does wrong
things in line with the American style typified by Breaking
Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos. This allows the writers to
be more sophisticated and there is no need to have simplified
stories any more. But the danger is that you end up with a menu
of clichs that are used over and over again. Every series has
a defective character, and sometimes you do feel that there is
an overwhelming range of problems! What else can we do,
once weve run out of affairs, potential suicides and so on?
If audiences do eventually tire of these complicated pileups, the next revolution will surely deliver yet another
twist in the development of Danish television drama, in
which simplicity could be a keyword. For the time being,
however, it is thriving on its status as a fashionable and
important commodity on the world stage, and its expertise
in delivering what Ib Bondebjerg calls the double story.
38
You cant make a shallow product anymore, he says There

has to be an underlying ethical or political dimension, so personal stories are always connected in some way with big social
institutions and enterprises as in Borgen and The Legacy.
Those connections were also there in Matador, albeit on
an embryonic scale represented by the towns increasingly troubled private bank and department store. Despite the gulf between production styles and techniques
then and now, perhaps Danish programme makers have
always had an instinctive understanding of how to use
the personal/social/national dynamic to make compelling drama. The fact that their approach is currently chiming in tune with international tastes is simply a bonus.
Many of us travelling to international research conferences are very aware of this new interest in Danish drama
and we have to acknowledge that something exciting
not rotten is going on in the state of Denmark, he says.
For the rest of us caught in its spell, taking some time out
for a nostalgic feast on a Matador box set might be the
best way to understand that the success of modern Danish television drama is firmly rooted in a tradition of quality and attention to detail. Equally, todays successes reflect an ability to absorb new ideas and influences, and
exploit them in productions that define and present a thoroughly modern cultural identity for a global audience.
Matador is available in
DVD boxset online with
English subtitles (with a bit
of searching)
The Legacy is currently
screening on British television, and DVD rights have
been signed, meaning an
announcement is due soon.

the best in danish television

The House in Christianshavn
(1970-1977)
Matador
(1978-1982)
The Kingdom
(1994)
Taxa
(1997-1999)
The Kingdom
(1994)
This series was made by Lars von Trier, and has recently
been voted one of the scariest television programs of all
time. Lars von Trier stated on the DVD that it is intended to
be an up-to-date version of Matador.
Unit 1
(2000-2004)
The Eagle: A Crime Odyssey

(2004-2006)
Better Times
(2004-2007)
The Killing
(2007-2012)
the killing
(2007-2012)
The Killing was possibly the first Danish television series to

launch to large international success, becoming one of the
biggest series in the UK and one of the major names behind
the Nordic Noir genre.
Borgen
(2010-)
The Bridge
(2011-)
The Legacy
(2014-)
1864
(2014-)
1864
(2014-)
1864 has been named the next big Danish television drama,
also being the most expensive Danish series ever, costing an
estimated DKK 173,000,000. The series premiered to mix
reviews.
39
the killing
words: birgit de bruin
The Secret of the Danes

Denmark is one of the smallest countries of Scandinavia, with
a minor language and a population of only 5.6 million people. Denmark is almost inconspicuous and yet very startling
in terms of television and film. Danish films are frequently
screened at international film festivals, like Cannes or the Berlinale, and regularly win important prizes at these festivals.
The domestic market share of Danish films belongs to the
highest in Europe, and in the annual film top ten in Denmark
there are always at least three Danish titles. Furthermore Danish films and series are screened abroad outside the festival
circuit, and not only in Europe. Something most other (small)
40
nations can only dream of. In addition to this many Danish

directors works abroad. I think everyone has seen or at least
knows a title of Danish series or films. Thinking of films like
Festen (The Celebration 1998) or Jagten (The Hunt - 2013)
or the series Forbrydelsen (The Killing), Borgen, Broen
(The Bridge) or one of the newest series called Arvingerne
(The Legacy). This has not always been like that, since the
90s the Danish film and television sector is undergoing a
proverbial Second Golden Age; with the current film policy
and film talent as two explanatory factors for this success.

the secret of the danes
Film Policy
The Second Golden Age of the Danish cinema started in the 90s, in general after the world renowned
Dogma Manifest in 1995 in Paris and changes in
the film policy of the Danish Film Institute (DFI).
In the 80s Danish films werent that popular and even the
Danes themselves would rather watch American content.
Or in the words of film Scholar Mette Hjort: Even Danes
had little or no time for Danish cinema. If Danes themselves
viewed Danish films as well-meaning but boring result of
state subsidies, then why should the rest of the world pay attention to this small nation cinema? Obviously change was
needed and came with the introduction of the new Film Act
of 1989. With this act the DFI introduced a dual policy for
either more artistic and popular films. The already existing
consultant scheme was from now on only to ensure the production of artistically valuable films and the new introduced
50/50 scheme was developed to facilitate the production of
films with a more popular appeal. By the consultant scheme
film consultants evaluate grant applications for artistic films
on a substantive, qualitative manner. The 50/50 Scheme is a
matching fund, whereby filmmakers themselves provide 50
percent of the budget through the market; the other half comes
from the DFI. The 50/50 Scheme can be seen as a supplement
to the Consultant Scheme and never had the aim to replace
the Consultant Scheme. Filmmakers who couldnt get subsidy via the Consultant Scheme could now find an alternative
funding mechanism to realize their film through the 50/50
Scheme. In 1997 the 50/50 Scheme changed into the 60/40
Scheme whereby 60 percent of the film budget was derived
from the DFI and 40 percent of the market. Nowadays both
schemes still exist, although the Consultant Scheme has been
renamed to Commissioners Scheme and the 60/40 Scheme
into the Market Scheme. Remarkably, the most visited Danish movies in Denmark are subsidized through the Market
Scheme but there are also films with international success
that received funding through this scheme. For instance Stille
Hjerte (Silent Hearts - 2014). The films which are mainly international successful, and win prizes at international
film festivals, are mostly subsidized through the consultant
scheme, like Jagten. Nowadays there is a lot of attention for
the Danish model in international context with the Netherlands probably as most remarkable example. Since 2013 the
Dutch Film Fund implements a film policy to Danish model.
the hunt
danish film talent
Simultaneously with the substantive policy changes, there
was more public money available for film. This money was
not only reserved for the production of more films, but also
for investing in quality and for the professionalizing of the
Danish film market. Key terms of the DFI were cultural
and artistic innovation with special attention to talent. To
encourage this the Scheme New Danish Screen was created in 2003 for the support of new talent and innovative
films. This fund was inspired by the success of the Dogma
95 movement whereby low budget filmmaking was one of
the norms. An example of an international remarkable movie
that received subsidy through New Danish Screen is Applaus (Applause - 2009). Simultaneously with the policy
changes, there was more serious attention to film talent with
the professionalizing of the National Film School of Denmark (NFSD). This state school has the current status as one
of the worlds most successful film schools. Most of the internationally acclaimed Danish filmmakers associated with
the Second Golden Age like Bille August, Thomas Vinterberg, Lars von Trier and Susanne Bier have studied at this
institution. Their international recognition has ensured that
the government invested in the development of the Danish film industry. Because of this, it developed into one of
the most successful film industries of Europe nowadays.
This concludes that the interplay between film policy
and talent forms the factors behind the current Danish film success. Without talent there would be no films
like Hvnen (In a Better World - 2010), Jagten or Stille
Hjerte and without film policy there would be no money to make these wonderful productions happen. A balance between these two factors must always remain.
41
adam price and the cast of borgen
words: barry forshaw
adam price:
Not just for the danes
The creator of Borgen talks frankly to Barry Forshaw (author of Nordic Noir,
Euro Noir and Death in a Cold Climate) about our favourite female prime minister, Birgitte Nyborg, dysfunctional coalitions, and whether Adam is Danish or British...
42

adam price: not just for the danes
Barry Forshaw: I know youve been asked this before,

Adam, but as the success of Borgen continued to grow
-- with great anticipation in Britain for the third series
-- were you surprised that a programme about Danish
politics has struck such a chord with British audiences?
Adam Price: As you say, Im often asked this, but I never
tire of saying that we were totally unprepared for the international success. When the programme was first mooted,
we were informed -- quite coolly -- that Borgen had no
chance of being a show that travelled. It was basically
just for Danes; it might be bought by other Scandinavian
countries out of brotherly feeling more than anything else,
but it certainly stood no chance abroad. And, frankly, at the
time, we didnt argue with this. But perhaps the fact that we
simply tried to make the very best show we could for an
indigenous audience is precisely why it has been so successful; we never made concessions to other countries. Fortunately, there was clearly a universality to Birgitte Nyborgs
problems -- and the challenges facing a woman in power.
Borgen examines forensically the problems of coalition government in which one side cordially dislikes another, but has
to present a united front to the public -- you cant have been
surprised that this theme resonated strongly in Britain
I suppose not! Its been said to me that British audiences
could not believe that we didnt have a direct hot-line to the
seat of the UK government as so many situations in both
countries echoed each other. But there is one thing that
makes our show very different from current British politics -- there is a woman in the ultimate position of power, which you may have had in the past, but not today
As you say, but Margaret Thatcher was a very different kettle
of fish to Birgitte Nyborg -- she conspicuously presented a
masculine persona, tougher than any of her male colleagues
Birgitte Nyborg could not be more different to Margaret Thatcher. We are, of course, lucky to have a great actress playing her in Sidse Babett Knudsen -- and in any
discussions with her, we always wanted to keep central the fact that she was strong but feminine. But sexism is not as central to the show as it would probably
be in Britain if it were made here. Or, for that matter,

France, from where Ive just returned -- there is still a
feeling that there is something exotic about the Scandinavian situation where women can have positions of power
like this. In Denmark, it is not an issue for discussion any
more. In each episode, Birgitte has a specific problem to
solve, but the one that most relates to her as a woman is
the ongoing problem with her beleaguered marriage -her husband leaving her for another woman, and the difficulty she has coping with her daughters breakdown.
Your mention of her husband Philip is a reminder of one of
the most audacious aspects of the show at least in terms of
testing audience patience! In early episodes, British viewers
(while completely mesmerised) were shouting at the screen:
her husband is just too good to be true! He puts his own career on hold, he passes on a job he was keen to have, he just
smiles wryly when she tells him which days of the week they
will be able to have sex because of her political schedule...
You were really teasing the audience with Philip, werent you?
Of course! We knew that audiences would be thinking:
For Gods sake, how long is he going to put up with this?
And when he finally rebels, and everything starts to go
wrong with the marriage, that had just the dramatic force
that we were aiming for -- in fact, it was probably more
impactful because we had made audiences really wait for
this moment. But this leads on to a discussion of the collaborative nature of the show -- shall I tell you how Sidse
Babett Knudsen affected the writing of those scenes?
Please
do!
One
quite a bit of
would
imagine
input into her
she
has
character...
Literally so, in terms of the dialogue. Many viewers of

the show were on Philips side when he finally turned and
re-established his well, lets call it his masculinity -- in
other words, they were saying: Why didnt Birgitte see
this coming? But Sidse herself actually never felt that way.
She felt he was weak to give in at the stage he did, despite
the couples problems -- and said that he bailed out of the
marriage too early, and should have hung in there longer.
Sidse said this with such forcefulness that I thought: Im going to give her character that line of dialogue! Which I did.
43
Many viewers of the show

were on Philips side when he
finally turned and re-established his well, lets call it his
masculinity -- in other words,
they were saying: Why didnt
Birgitte see this coming? But
Sidse herself actually never
felt that way. She felt he was
weak to give in at the stage he
did, despite the couples problems -- and said that he bailed
out of the marriage too early.
sidse babett knudsen
In fact that exchange has the viewer changing their mind about
the marriage -- as you remark, up to that point weve been sort
of on Philips side -- but then we were persuaded she had a point.
Thats exactly what we wanted. Or at least to initiate a discussion. We were keen that people had to really think for
themselves about both the personal and the political aspects of the show. And we made no attempt to spoonfeed
viewers. Its up to those watching to decide what they
think of the show, observing how the characters behave.
You mentioned to me that the show was genuinely collaborative, but be honest -- is there blood on the
floor when people violently disagree? Surely if everyone has their say, youre in a too many cooks situation?
Absolutely. But although I make a point of listening to the actors and the writers, I have to be the showrunner -- without
being precious about it, there has to be a guiding creative vision behind the show, or there is the danger of a loss of focus.
Was an example of this when Sidse objected to Birgitte sleeping
with her chauffeur -- which she felt was wrong for the character?
Yes, its true, she was not happy about that, but we had
an amicable discussion about why the scene made dramatic sense -- and in the end I think it was justified by
the results. Certainly audiences responded to it strongly,
and it showed another facet of the prime ministers char-
44
acter. She doesnt just do it out of sexual frustration.

Were discussing Borgen in the context of a magazine called
Nordic Noir -- but does the show really belong in that category? Are you happy with it being called a political thriller?
Well, it is a political thriller in some aspects, and it sometimes
has a noirish feeling -- but you might say thats true of only
certain episodes. Most of the time it might more accurately
be described as political drama. But Im perfectly happy
for it to be regarded as part of the Nordic Noir genre -- as
there is such phenomenal popularity of the latter at present!
Finally -- back to basics with three questions. Firstly, how British are you? And do you mind being drawn out into the limelight
to be something of a celebrity yourself? Finally, how does one
really pronounce your name, which sounds very Anglo-Saxon?
Okay -- to answer your questions in that order. I am Danish, but I come from an old English family: we left Britain
in the 1790s, so Im something of a mixture, but basically
a Dane. Secondly, I really dont mind being drawn into the
limelight -- I know you told me that Sren Sveistrup (who
wrote The Killing) said to you he wasnt comfortable being
interviewed on stage, and preferred to be an invisible man,
but I have another job as a TV host, Im known as a chef (my
other calling) -- and I am from a theatrical background -- so I
really dont mind being seen in public. Finally, Im perfectly
happy for Brits to call me Adam Price in a totally English
way. But to Danes, its something like Ay-dam Preecer.
Sex and Film: The Erotic in British, American and World Cinema (Palgrave Macmillan, May 1, 2015) is a
frank, comprehensive and insightful analysis of the cinema's long love affair with the erotic and how society is reflected through the many and bitter censorship battles which accompanied all attempts by filmmakers to broaden the limits of what is acceptable. Barry Forshaws lively and scholarly study moves from the
sexual abandon of the silent era and the 1930s through the enforced innocence brought about by the restrictive Hays code (and the ingenious attempts by filmmakers during that era to circumvent censorship), through
the demolition of taboos by arthouse movies of the 1950s and 60s (notably Ingmar Bergman's groundbreaking The Virgin Spring and The Silence) and the battles of rebel directors such as Otto Preminger who tried
to tackle the sexual arena with an adult honesty. Sex in British, American and World Cinema discusses (and
celebrates) all the key moments in this incendiary area, including the exploitation cinema of the 1970s, and
the brief period when pornographic films became acceptable fare for couples, while the final crumbling of
censorship in the 1980s and 90s up to the present day (resulting in graphic and explicit imagery becoming
part of mainstream cinema) takes the book right up to the present and beyond.
45
46
nymphomaniac posters
how do we say
this will entertain you?

Maria Einstein Biilmann, creative director and one half of The
Einstein Couple (Philip Einstein Lipski being the second half) discusses
movie marketing and the importance of title sequences in TV-series.
words: cleo paraskevopoulou

Cleo:
You
are
called
ple. How did you come
The
Einstein
Couup with that name?
Maria: It is actually my husbands

action that Philip always gets on
strong that we thought it would
to introduce ourselves as The
surname. The rethis name is so

be a good idea
Einstein Couple.
You have worked on several campaigns many of which are for

Danish films that managed to have an international impact,
such as Nymphomaniac, The Royal Affair and recently, The
Keeper of Lost Causes. What do you think is the key to successful movie marketing and what does your job involve exactly?
We start by reading the script. Then we see if our work can do
something to push it further. What we do, as marketing people, is help a good script look as good as it deserves. What we
add upon it is just a topping. We have a whole process,
The Einstein Method, during which we look at the film a little bit like a product. We figure out what is the unique selling
point, who is the audience, why they should go and see it and
how the movie is relevant. This is because the audience is
always looking for something that is relevant to themselves
and they want to satisfy a need to be entertained, which has
to be triggered somehow. How do we say this will entertain
you, so that you go for this ticket, instead of a ticket for
something else? The method is the basis for what the artwork should look like. So we end up with the positioning, a
layout of the artwork, or maybe just a sketch, a tag-line and
a structure for a trailer. Those pieces form a little campaign
which we then present to the producer and the distributor
and if they like it, we start executing it. That involves setting
up a photo-shoot, getting the producer to get hold of all the
actors, hiring the photographer and being the art directors. In
the photo-shoot everyone is briefed on what we are going
to make, according to the sketch or layout. The after-work
consists of choosing the best photos, doing the retouching
and the grading of the pictures. The final step is the graphic
design. It usually takes an average of about six months for
the whole process to be completed, if its a big campaign.
So what we see is the result of the process, we see the
posters on the road, we watch the trailer. What subtle details are there that the audience cant necessarily spot?
They might not realize that there is a lot of thought behind
how the movie is marketed. But we think they still sense
it in a way, because when the movie has a clear positioning,
you know exactly what kind of experience you are going to
have and the audience likes that. When we come up with the
idea for the poster, we dont always base it on a scene from
the movie. If you take the Nymphomaniac campaign for instance, - the orgasms - not everyone that we portray like that
has an orgasm in the film. It is, however, a way of saying that
the audience will get an experience of a sexual adventure
and that the nymphomaniacs story affects all those characters. Uma Thermans character doesnt have an orgasm in
the film, yet she is affected by the nymphomaniac because
her husband goes to bed with her. An interpretation of the
films theme; thats what we try to do. It is a translation of
the theme into the poster media and that works differently
from moving pictures. A poster needs to be read, decoded
and liked instantly. You cant make use of the actors charm
or acting talent, you only have a split second to get people
to look at your poster and make their choice. Moreover, we
dont display something that the movie doesnt offer, we
simply construct a compact distillation of its major qualities.
Speaking of posters, graphic designers often claim that there
are principles that have to be applied, ideal fonts, information
that needs to be on the poster and so on. How strict do you think
those guidelines are? Do they change depending on the film?
47
Of course there are certain rules in graphic design, like the

title should be big, the credit bar shouldnt be too long...,
but rules can be broken. Nothing is set beforehand; you
can play with everything, as long as you can make it work.
Whats more, we are not graphic designers, we are art directors. We think on a higher concept level and design is
merely a tool that helps to get the right feelings across.
Aside from film, you are also behind the title sequence of The
Legacy (Arvingerne), very impressive work. Which elements
would you say are essential for an effective title sequence?
Actually we work on a title sequence the same way we do
on a film poster, except we have moving pictures instead of
a still image. When we got The Legacy the obvious way
to go was to think about the actual inheritance, but when
we read the script we felt it was about the people, the heirs,
and what the legacy does to them, how it splits them apart.
Thats what the explosion symbolizes. The mothers
death triggers the story and each flower symbolizes a sibling. For us a good title sequence should be a distillation
of the theme of the series because, like a movie poster, a
title sequence can set the mood for the audience. It prepares
them for what they are about to watch. Not many European projects have big budgets for title sequences, it is still a
very American thing. In my opinion, title sequences are an
overlooked part of European series making and producing.
With only a few episodes of a series already shot, you
would have to put together a title sequence with limited available material. How challenging is that?
That just makes the challenge different. It forces you to look
for alternative ways to do it. On The Legacy we had the
scripts that allowed us to brainstorm and come up with a concept. We had seen the production design and the sets, we knew
what they were aiming for. That was enough to get the idea.
You work with various kinds of professionals. Many of them
are artists. Do you usually stick with your original plan
or can it also be a collaboration between them and you?
It is a collaboration. All the way through. Lets say we are
on the photo-shoot with the photographer and we all see
48
that it doesnt work. That means we need to think of something else. For example, if an actor is not motivated, if he
is not willing to do it, we find another way. We often work
with the same photographer and graphic designer on multiple projects, which helps with having a good understanding
of what everyones work requires. A good team is crucial.
When
you
look
at
other
campaigns,
are some common mistakes you can
out and how do you avoid making
what
point
them?
The floating head tradition Im not a fan of. Its a very

common way of doing film posters, but to me its kind of
weird and surreal, a last resort if everything else fails. Philip and I go down to the biggest movie theatre in Copenhagen and we look at the assembly of all the movie posters.
Then we ask ourselves: what does it take to stand out in
this line-up? You see, when local films are up against all
the American blockbusters, they dont stand a chance, unless they are distinctive and original. The audience is undoubtedly going to buy a ticket for what looks more convincing. Thats something we really put a lot of thought into.
In Scandinavia, we also have a strong tradition in design,
known for its simplicity and we try to apply this to our work.
So what do you think is more Scandinavian than
it is European or American in the way you work?
The simplicity I mentioned. We try to apply that to the movie
poster, give it a Scandinavian look and make it appealing
so that you would choose this film over Nicolas Cage on
a floating head poster. We always try to think of a clean
concept. What I mean by clean is that it should be clearly
defined, like a piece of cake youd want to have a bite of.
Any past films or TV-shows the campaigns of which youve seen
and you thought Oh we wish we were the ones who did that?
The True Detective title sequence I would have loved to
have done. It is very beautiful and it really does the job of inviting the audience into the atmosphere of the series. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was a fantastic poster campaign,
that successfully encapsulated the whole concept of the film.

how do we say this will entertain you?
the einstein couple
Youve mentioned that you usually work with the same group
of artists. What about the other end of the line? Are there any
filmmakers or producers youd like to work with in the future?
We dont have dream clients. What we really like is
to read a good script and see if we can help it reach
a wider audience. It doesnt matter whether theyre
well-known or unknown. We have a few small projects right
now, all fantastic scripts. They are also more art-house than the
area we have travelled in before, but they are still very relevant
to the viewer. They are beautiful stories, very well told, and
thats what we are looking for. The Nymphomaniac campaign
was the first art-house movie we worked on, by one of the most
important art-house directors worldwide. It was a great experience but what really matters is the script, the movie itself. Except cinema, what we would like to do more of in the future, is
title sequences. We enjoy it and we believe it can help a series
in a lot of areas, including finding its way out of national borders. It makes a huge difference that a project has a clear identity.
The work of The Einstein

Couple includes:
The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo
Clown
A Royal Affair
Nymphomaniac
The Keeper of Lost Causes,
The Arms Drop
Armadillo
49
real humans
Real humans:
Swedish sci-fi television
50
what actually is a real human?

Real Humans (original title: kta mnniskor) created by Lars Lundstrm is a Swedish mixed-genre TV series that combines the elements of science fiction and drama, but a certain amount of crime also appears on the screen from time to time.
words: barbara majsa

Before I start discussing the new Scandinavian hit, I would
like to briefly elaborate on the Scandinavian/Nordic series
in general. Nowadays Scandinavian TV shows are fairly prominent around the globe, which might be the result
of their distinctive and easily recognisable style, but even
the region itself is quite popular among both job seekers and tourists. Therefore, its not a surprise that people
tend to talk about Nordic noir, for instance, when it comes
to crime series taking place somewhere in the North.
I agree with Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham who says
that Scandinavian dramas treat us as adults, and [n]ot just
[because of] the ability to follow a long, multi stranded, and
complex story, but because they are quite fearless in playing
around with expectations. Major characters are killed off, and
there is never any kind of redemptive aspect to the story.1
We have managed to give universal issues a local flavour,

reflecting the Scandinavian way of life with its own editing, pace and narrative styles. More precisely, writers have
managed to create a glocal meaning both global and local story. Indeed, Redvall has emphasized the significance
of one vision in both her lecture given during the course
of Scandinavian Film and Television held by University of
Copenhagen and her text on institutional authorship and creative agency. Having a first dogma insisting that the writer
should be at the centre of the production process and be treated in respect of the concept of one vision or a second dogma specifying the need for double storytelling does communicate a certain idea of how to make television series.3
Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark, mainly export

crime series. Series like The Killing or The Bridge provide
excellent examples of TV shows that are able to attract both
national and international audiences. This specific genre
gives the opportunity to the viewers to experience excitement, fear, hope and anger at the same time. In addition to
that, they also become part of the investigation, and as a consequence of that they are able to create their own theories.
Authenticity, ordinariness and realism with a certain extent

of darkness and irony comprise the Scandinavian/Nordic
style, even if we talk about other kinds of series. I admire the
fact that Scandinavian/Nordic authors and/or creators in different fields of art and culture are able to face their limits and
imperfection. It shows self-consciousness and allows to portray fictional characters as ordinary human beings who might
or actually exist somewhere among us. People behind the
popular TV shows know that standing on the ground of realism infected by darkness and irony creates space for completely ordinary characters to become the heroes of others.
And this is exactly what happens in Real Humans, which
shows the characteristics mentioned above, even though its
not a crime series. It has a story that is both local and global
as it meditates on universal social issues, and in spite of the
scientific theme its plot is absorbed by realism and ordinariness. We follow the Engman family and some hubots,
who are trying to bring about changes in society where,
according to some, being different is hundred per cent unacceptable. But who can define what is normal anyway?
Despite the importance of the genre, the plot always plays

crucial role. SVTs drama boss, Christian Wikander says,
The series takes place in a parallel universe portraying Sweden as a country where it is completely natural
However, the ultimate success behind the Scandinavian

television shows is definitely that authentic outcome that
originates in the unique and well-balanced blend of the
genre, the plot and the style. Other important factors are
the reflections of the shows upon society and the challenges that people have to face and overcome. Crime
fiction [...] in one way or another is based on a realistic
way of seeing, which reflects the problems of society.2
51
to possess a hubot or more. You are probably wondering by

now what a hubot is exactly. Hubots are androids that have
different roles in society; for instance, they are factory workers, servants, and what is more, you can even play Paintball
with them. Besides the hubots who are programmed and do
whatever their owners wish them to do, there is a group of
free hubots who have been designed by David Eischer in
a way that they behave just like us as people; they have free
will and are able to develop feelings and desires, and some
of them are evil and want to exploit and rule others. So it really is time to remember the question asked in the title: What
does it mean to be human? I assume we all have some ideas,
but do we have a clear and exact answer to that question?
This ambiguity is the base of the conflict unfolding in the
series. A great percentage of people do not like hubots, and
what is more, they want to destroy all of them. They see them
partly as objects that have one goal in life, namely to serve
their owners who can turn them off whenever and wherever
they want, partly something dangerous that can and will attack people at some point. Although it might go a little bit
too far, I still do think that being owned, sold, bought and
exploited as most of the hubots should remind us of the
victims of the organised human and organ trafficking business. These serious issues are not discussed per se but we
can find some hints of them. What we can see, though, is that
relatively many human(-like) and story-wise important
individuals die during the two seasons of the show, just like
in any other Scandinavian/Nordic series. Nice ones and bad
ones pass away, too, and here we reach another point of the
human existence: death. We all know we are going to die
some time, but do we all have to die? Being partly science
fiction Real Humans does not take no as an answer. Though,
not the old tactic that is freezing ourselves to be woken up
later on is the way how people survive, or should I say resurrect? To be able to avoid real(?) death one can choose to be
cloned, and then live like a hubot happily ever after. But is
life so great to live forever, even if just as a machine? What
makes someone or something human: the soul or the brain?
While death is viewed as a taboo topic in most cultures, and
therefore we dont really want to build a dialogue or a monologue on it, unless we are George Carlin, for example, poli-
52
tics is something that provides plenty of topics to talk about,

especially in Sweden nowadays. Without doubt, we all have
experienced the emergence of several slightly or extremely
radical political parties across Europe. The series also reflects upon this phenomenon: In Real Humans a party called
Real Humans tries to gain political influence, meanwhile it
has been already operating and educating [sic] the member of its own youth movement. However, I find somewhat
misleading the outfit (uniform) of the members of the youth
organisation, which make one think of skinheads who have
different branches not all skinheads are racist and discriminate others. (But this is part of another discussion that
might take place at another time.) What is significant here is
that the members of Real Humans proclaim their views on
hubots wherever they go and are not afraid of taking actions
against them. Discrimination, aggression, anger, disappointment and the lack of knowledge feed upon their feelings.
However, there are those who fight for equality and the
hubots rights. Indeed, Real Humans depicts a Swedish society that bears some resemblance to todays Sweden, and
generally speaking, to some other countries as well. While
hubots represent the immigrants, one can also find similarities between the radical political party, its youth organisation, the Swedish Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), which
has become the third biggest party in Sweden during the
latest parliamentary election, and its youth organisation.
Still, Lars Lundstrm, the creator of Real Humans, has mentioned the relationship between people and machines as the
basic idea of the series. Lets find out more from the interview!
what actually is a real human?
Interview with lars Lundstrm,

c r e at o r o f r e a l h u m a n s
Barbara: How did you get the idea of creating a TV show
like Real Humans?
Lars: Ive had this idea since 2006. The technical development, together with how people have received it and with
everything else that has become an integrated part of a sort
of greater universal human intelligence, has contributed
to the origin of the idea. But even an interest in how we,
people, as race react and interact when the borders between
machines and people start to disappear has been a driving
force behind Real Humans. In addition to these, the opportunity to use this against a metaphorical plan and to hold
this as a mirror to show how our world looks today inspired
me.
Did you think any particular actors or actresses when you
created your characters?
No, not from the very beginning. Characters are only different energies and functions in a story. When the actors and
actresses come in to the design process, they take over these
energies in a way and create the characters that I take as a
starting point later on.
The title is Real Humans. Those who dont like hubots
call themselves real humans, however, I think the focus is
on the hubots, not on the people. At the end of the second
season we could also follow a discussion about what it
means to be human, and then Mimi and Florentine (hubots
designed by David Eischer) were called individuals. So Im
wondering: Who are those real humans that the title is talking about?
Lars: In Sweden the series has received just a little attention, as an odd bird, as so many people have had difficulties
to sort out that they are accustomed to consider as Swedish. That is why I think a lot of them have found it difficult
to relate to the series in a relaxing way. The public that I
know and that has put such baggage aside is the youth who
adopted the series in another way. I am humble and hardly
think that a TV series could change society. My very first
ambition, regardless of everything, is to keep up, but in
a remarkable way. The opportunity that stimulates such
thoughts and reflections in someone might lead us to something great in the future, who knows?
What do you think about the success of the show? Have you
expected such national and international success?
One never expects success. Success is always unexpected
because it is so unusual. We are happy. The subject and the
genre have brought cross-boundary fascination, we realized
this very soon. It is not a locally grounded story but a story
about our world today, created through a premise and a
theme that fascinates many.
Real Humans
is available
worldwide on
DVD.
Real Humans is indeed ambiguous, just like you are suggesting. The meaning is that one will ask the question:
What is actually a real human?
One can say that Sweden in the series is similar to the real
Sweden in a certain way. How have the Swedish public
reacted? Do you think a TV show or a film could bring
about social changes in society?
53
they are not strangers

About allegorical dimensions of TV
s e r i e s k ta m n n i s ko r
words: Petr Pltenk
At the turn of the years 2013 and 2014, the second season of TV series called kta mnniskor (Real Humans)
was broadcast in Sweden, a sci-fi based story situated in
the not too distant future, where people live together with
robots. Besides the fact that sci-fi genre is still rather rare
phenomena in the context of European TV production,
kta mnniskor deserve our attention because of its complex plot structure and allegorical depiction of actual social problems and changes. We can talk about artistic and
ideological ambitious project belonging into the line of
Nordic quality TV (Forbrydelsen, Borgen, Bron/Broen).
Main allegorical element of kta mnniskor is based on the
expression of otherness. Robots, which are called hubots
here, are just different than people. They are not as perfect
as human beings. Some parts of human psyche (emotions
and irrational part of a personality) are unavailable for them.
Also their facial expression, gesture, motor skills and manner of dressing is slightly different. The reason that they are
being bought by people and being owned by them allows us
to call this type of social arrangement as quasi-slavery. But
because the plot is situated in liberal Sweden, the attitude
towards hubots differs according to owners ethos. We can
lay out the basic difference based on the division between
artificial human being on one hand and the intelligent instrument expanding human possibilities on the other hand.
The vague qualification of social and ontological status of
hubots is the reason of many social disagreements within
fictional world of this TV series. The most evident expression of the social discrepancy is the existence of a radical political party called Real Humans (the eponymous
title of the series). The scriptwriters of kta mnniskor
just skillfully recycled the well - known stereotypes usually connected with this kind of political parties in their
process of creation the image of the Real Humans party.
The typical arguments are as follows: hubots are stealing our jobs, they are a threat for us and our families,
hubots will overwhelm us and rule in our own country.
54
Ideological counterpart to Real Humans party is represented

by Egmans family. The members of the family are going
through development in their relation to hubots: from doubts
to understanding and accepting robots as beings equivalent to human beings. Two family members go even further. Adolescent son Tobbe falls in love with hubot-woman
called Mimi and thus he accepts his different sexual orientation (in this TV series called trans-human sexual, THS
in short). Moreover, in the conclusion of the first season
of kta manniskor Tobbe is passing his coming out. His
mother Inger, a lawyer, attends two precedent court trials
where she acts as an attorney, defending the rights of hubots.
The impetus of most of the dramatic changes in the TV series
is provided by the existence of a group of hubots who possess a free will. These special robots were created by David Eischer, the inventor of hubots, shortly before his death.
Software of this type of hubots contains a semi-mythical algorithm, which can access the parts of personality that are
unavailable to other robots. They are capable of complicated
emotional experience and even advanced psychological development. They can achieve such a level of social independence, that one of the special hubots even worked undercover as a regular police officer in the unit investigating
criminality connected with hubots. The biggest restrain in a
way to absolute independence of Davids children (how
these hubots called themselves in story of TV series) is their
dependency on the source of electrical energy. But in many
other fields they are more efficient, more competent than human beings. Viewing from the extreme positions of Real Humans party on one hand and Engmans family on the other
hand, the existence of this group of extra predisposed hubots
stimulates a further discussion about their social status and
also, in some way, confirms the fears expressed by Real
Humans party, because some of the Davids children really
speak about ruling the world and subduing the humankind.
In the complicated structure of the TV series plot, a special position belongs to a hubot-woman called Mimi (most of the first
they are not strangers
real humans
season, she is presented as Anita). Fluid nature of her identity (in the finale of the second season we realize that she is in fact a clone/copy of a
dead woman) maybe deserves its own analytical text, in the context of the
layering principle and broadening the spectrum of fictional contexts in the
whole series. It is necessary to point out that Mimi is gradually becoming
a member of Engmans family. Thanks to permanent interaction with people, that are aware of her otherness (as artificial being), Mimis psychological and social abilities are developing, making her more human, and
members of the Engman family accept her as equivalent to human beings.
The determining influence of human society is confirmed by plot-line of
hubot-woman called Flash (her male twins name is Gordon) in second
season of the TV series. She chooses a new name and calls herself Florentine, she even gets married to a man and they adopt a child. The untimely
death of her husband starts a trial that on one hand concludes in her losing
a part of bequeathed inheritance and a custody of her adopted child, but on
the other hand Florentine is accepted as a subject of law before the court,
deserving the same rights as human being. The determining influence of
human society is confirmed by plot-line of hubot-woman called Flash
(her male twins name is Gordon) in second season of the TV series. She
chooses a new name and calls herself Florentine, she even gets married to
a man and they adopt a child. The untimely death of her husband starts a trial
that on one hand concludes in her losing a part of bequeathed inheritance and
a custody of her adopted child, but on the other hand Florentine is accepted as a subject of law before the court, deserving the same rights as human
being. There is an evident parallel with famous scene from TV series Star
Trek: The Next Generation (S02E09 The Measure of a Man): Lieutenant Commander Data, as well as Florentine is classified by court of law as
an artificial intelligence with human abilities and traits, whom is in conclusion is seen as deserving the same rights as a human being. This creates a
legal precedent that has to be considered in the similar cases and trials. And
moreover, the social status of robots is inevitably changed by an act of law.
The TV series kta mnniskor is a complex and complicated work both
in terms of plot structure and of the image of the present social development. By writing this article, I thought about many other topics I could
write about. One of the most interesting issues is an almost absolute absence of representation of the state institutions (except maybe police and
court of law) in the TV series, which is surprising considering that the story is situated in Sweden known by its welfare system and system of social
control. You can also find some texts on the Internet dealing with the image of the sexual otherness and its social acceptance or exclusion. Despite
the broad context network that spreads across the existing two seasons of
kta mnniskor it is pleasant to say that the viewer is not lost in the plot
and that the story is not hindered by its ambitious rendition. However, so
many plot related questions still remain open and unanswered. Despite
the evasive responses from producing SVT company, we may only hope
that the work on the third season of kta mnniskor is in progress. Because there are still so many things to be told. Not to speak of really massive cliffhanger placed in the finale of the second season of TV series...
55
real humans
56
real humans in review

words: Bram Adimas Wasito
In recent times, we have been bombarded by new technologies that could replicate human beings such as Japans
kodomoroid and telenoid as well as the Turing test. While
these technologies may still be in their infancy, reactions
have been mixed. Imagine if those technologies have become more advanced. Real Humans (kta mnniskor) is
a Swedish science fiction soap opera by Lars Lundstrm
that questions the essence and boundary of humanity. It portrays a society in which the technologies stated previously
have become more advanced. Unlike Star Wars or Star
Trek kind of science fiction which seems farfetched from
the reality, what is going on in Real Humans seems very
plausible to occur just in the coming years or decades. In
Real Humanss world, hubot, a human-like android, has
become a staple in households and workplaces to help the
daily activities of its owners. To a certain extent, this series is just narrating what is already going on in the world
without the existence of hubots. In other words, hubots are
just like the marginalised in our society but the only difference is that they will not complain unless they have been
liberated by the code invented by David Eischer (Thomas
W Gabrielsson) who happens to be the inventor of hubot.
Firstly, hubots are used to outsource jobs, in particular those
that are risky and require minimum skills. However this outsourcing infuriates Roger (Leif Andre), a logistic worker at
a warehouse, who feels his job is threatened. Not only his
hubot coworkers do not complain, they are also more affordable than a human worker. He attends an kta mnniskor
party gathering where he meets Malte (Jimmy Lindstrm)
and Bea (Marie Robertson). Malte feels that the party stance
is too conservative and asks Roger to conform to his more
radical thinking. For those who live in the developed world,
replace hubots with foreign workers or replace hubots with
outsourcing of jobs to emerging economies where the base
costs are much lower and the situation seems more familiar. Resentments by workers who feel threatened by cheaper labour build up and those workers would be swayed by
right-wing political discourses. While in our world a hate
crime based on that resentments will stir up diplomatic
rows, who will stand up for the hubots in the parallel world?
The exploitation of hubots can also be seen as a form of slavery but as our modern society has been enlightened, some
hubot owners have formed a more intimate relationship
with their hubots. Rogers wife, Therese, for example has
bonded so much with Rick that when she learns that Roger
has a strong stance against hubot she leaves Roger. In the
second season, we learn that Therese has made up her mind
to move to the Netherlands where hubot-human couples are
more accepted in the wider society than in Sweden. I would
consider Thereses case as an extramarital affair. However,
there is a sort of relationship between hubot and human
that falls into a new type of sexuality called Trans Human
Sexuality (THS). The American animated series Futurama
coined the term robosexual but I guess such a term would
be discriminatory to the hubots in Real Humanss world.
THS is most apparent in Tobias Engman (Kre Hedebrant)
who shows affection towards the hubot in the house, Mimi/
Anita (Lisette Pagler). It is only in the later episode of the
first season that Tobbe,Tobiass nickname, comes out as a
THS to his family. Tobbe is eventually introduced to Betty, a
girl with a hubot fetish, who works in the same supermarket
as his sister, Matilda. The THS community is depicted with
its over the top clothing and accessories which seem more
suitable for attending a cosplay. Those are perhaps a form
of signifier of the THS community just like some stuff that
may symbolise the LGBTIQ community in our world. The
fact that the THS community gathers in a venue that looks
like an abandoned warehouse is perhaps a comparison to
the beginning of the sexual revolution in the Western world.
It is quite intriguing to see that such a progressive nation
like Sweden can be depicted as a backward yet highly regulated society when it comes to hubot. Backward in the sense
that it is not just when it comes to the THS community but
also about the use of hubots as domestic servants. Inger Engman (Pia Halvorsen) even questions whether her family are
feeling guilty about giving a hubot to take care of her father
because her family simply does not have the time to take
care of him. Hubot is seen as the cheap alternative and easy
way out over human-to-human interactions. However as the
only comparison of progressiveness given is the Netherlands
57
real humans
and a nation like Sweden is depicted as backward and pathetic when it comes to usage of hubot, it must be really bad elsewhere. Fortunately though, the Engmans are quite progressive and that Mimi/Anita is considered as part of the family.
party. It is interesting that Ellen Mattsson was given the role

of Eva as she once played the role of an extremely conservative Christian who detests sex before marriage and homosexuality in the premiere episode of the Wallander TV series.
I do not think that an article would do justice to the variety of

discussions that can be raised from this series. I cannot comment about the liberated hubots lead by the main antagonist,
Bea, as it is not yet clear what is her reason behind liberating the hubots. Also, many members of the original liberated
hubots get killed off along the way. Although Sweden is depicted as backward at times in this series, this series is quite
progressive in which it has very diverse casts featuring actors
of Asians, African and Arab backgrounds as well as a lesbian
priest character, sa. The couple later divorce after Eva, sas
ex- wife, is intimidated and insulted by the liberated hubots
that stay in their house. Eva later joins the kta mnniskor
I must admit that I am not a fan of the pacing of the series as

some subplots allow the characters to develop whereas others
are just popping out of nowhere and end very quickly. A third
season has not been ruled out but if they do, I hope they are
covering some of the loopholes in the second season. An English remake is underway and hopefully it will not be as lame
as The Tunnel, the English-French remake of Bron/Broen.
Personally, I would find a Latin American remake more appealing because the context would be different as Latin America has a huge social inequality and it will be an interesting
comparison to the original series. Though a South Korean
spin-off revealing the history of Mimi sounds good as well.
58
real humans in review
Real Humans premiered on SVT1 on the 22nd of January 2012. The series has been sold to
about 50 countries, including Australia, France, Germany, and South Korea. A second season of ten episodes premiered on SVT1 in October 2013. As of August 2014, a third season is
yet to be announced. However, an English-language version is currently in development. It
will be called Humans and will air on Channel 4 in the U.K. and on the Xbox in the U.S.
59
nymphomaniac
60
Lars Von Trier:

The provocateur
words: Francis Nicholson
If I have a bone to pick with Lars Von Trier, its over his
idea of what it means to be a provocateur.
Hes always engaged in a kind of provocation - the Von
in his name is precisely that, a barb designed to offend a
left-wing, anti-old-money milleu. Von is an appellation
that denotes not only Junker forbears, but pride in those forbears. Doubtless, when he adopted it, most of whom were
born Von would choose to omit it. He, on the other hand,
was born into this world just Lars Trier, the son of two
left-socialists - his mother being the more radical of the two.
He tells a story of his application to film school in an interview - they gave each applicant 20 minutes of Super-8 film,
and a camera, and sent them off to make a movie. All of
his soon-to-be classmates went of to document the relatively
grimy inner city Copenhagen. Lars, on the other hand, took a
bus out to the suburbs, to document the wealthy suburbanites.
Its exactly this gesture that is repeated throughout
his work - the adoption of a reactionary sign to upset a progressive monoculture he is ensconced in.
In some of his films, this tendency has allowed him to deliver powerful and constructive critiques of the left. The argument delivered by Graces father to Grace (that it is arrogant not to hold the residents of Dogville to the same moral
standards she holds herself to) is one all poor champions
and champions of the poor ought to take into their thinking.
Its an interesting formulation, because it resolves the question of morality into a simple choice - totalitarianism, or
the abandonment of personal morality. Grace murders the
residents of Dogville because she, in the last scene, imposes her incredibly high standards of moral behaviour upon
them. The conclusion is clear - if these liberal vegans who
hold themselves to such exacting standards ever gained
power, if ever they started to consider those they supposedly defend as humans with the same degree of agency as
their own, the result would be a totalitarianism so intoler-
ant of deviation that it would inevitably end in genocide.

Grace has a near-complete mastery of her own nature - she is
invulnerable to negative, non-progressive emotions of every
kind. The danger Trier is interested in is the danger of this
mastery of nature becoming the rule. In Nymphomaniac, this
rested
in
is
the
danger
of
this
mastery
of
nature
becoming
the
rule.
In
Nymphomaniac, this twin spectre, genocide and totalitarianism, is what confronts Joe, the protagonist. When she goes
to the sex-addict support group, shes asked to remove everything that reminds her of sex from her life. Its one of the most
funny scenes in the film - Joe throws away nearly everything
she owns, covers every corner of every piece of furniture
with bubble wrap, and lies in bed with socks over her hands.
The support group is a kitchen sink totalitarianism it demands she call herself a sex addict, not a nyphomaniac because were all the same here - even
the setting, a vast and empty stadium, is evocative
of the mass parades of the Nazis, or the panoptical.
Whatever else Trier is, hes not subtle, and hes not trying to
be. Joes rejection of the group explicitly evokes the monstrous
shadow of the innocuous fake empathy of societys morality
police - their duty being at base, to erase [her] obscenity
from the surface of the earth, so the bourgeois wont feel sick.
What hes trying to do with the film is contained within it,
in the scene where Joe reads out an encyclopaedic list of
sexual fantasies to a man, who turns out to be a pedophile.
The film contains an encyclopaedic list of sexual situations, almost always wrought with some level (from mild
to extreme) of social prohibition, and through this, Trier
attempts to provoke his audiences suppressed desires,
and thus gain himself allies against bourgeois morality.
Basically, the thesis is like that of Vol. 3. of Foucaults History of Sexuality - we must accept our drives, but we must
also strive for mastery over them. Joes nymphomania is
not the problem - the issue is her complete lack of control.
61
So when she abandons her child in her drive for orgasm,

the crime isnt the drive itself - its her subjection to it.
The pedophile in the film is a heroic figure precisely because he never submits to his desire, even for a moment.
Like Foucault, he is interested in Marquis de Sade - Joes
storytelling is, I think, a reference to Passolinis Salo. Like
Foucault, Trier has a healthy dislike for projects to reform
the drives. Like Foucault, Trier is mobilizing a Sadean,
Neitzschean disdain for morality against a society that surveils and condemns not just the action, but also the intent.
The hypocrisy of bourgeois morality is typified by the support group leader, who masks a desire to eradicate with
fake empathy, or the figure of Mrs H, played by Uma
Thurman, who subjects her children to incredible emotional violence in order to condemn her husbands sexual infraction, and most of all, the interlocutor - Seligman.
For the first time in all his films, he actually introduces a
totally contemptible straw man for his academic, leftist targets. Hes a professed asexual, who reacts with ludicrously off-topic observations (e.g. those are Fibonacci
numbers while Joe is describing the number of thrusts
involved in her first time having sex) to Joes dirty stories
For all the spine Joe has, he has none. He does not defend himself against Joes barbs. For all the sex shes
had, hes had none. His life is entirely textual, while she
has (and this is showcased throughout the film)apparently read no books. Seligman is interested in religion, but
not a believer. Even masturbation does nothing for him.
To crown all this, when Joe expresses her desire to have him as her first real friend, in the closing moments of the film, he tries to rape her.
In short, hes everything Trier hates about the left hypocritical, unable to stay on topic, repressed and repressive, too cowardly for either hatred or desire, politically correct, and incapable of direct engagement.
For me, this a similar case to Triers Nazi joke at Cannes.
While the reaction over Triers Nazi comments was as
idiotic as it was hypocritical, its impossible to avoid
62
the fact that Trier shouldnt use the Nazis to piss people off at a film festival, and he shouldnt use an image of rape to score points against imaginary enemies.
The image he has in mind is of the salmon lure - a fly designed to
irritate the salmon into biting, but the result is callous. It brings
up the question, who are these salmon hes aiming to hook?
Essentially, I think hes missed the point of what provocation is about. Provocation is supposed to attack societys dominant ideology. When Trier includes immigrant Africans in his chapter The Dangerous Men,
who must be spoken to with a translator who speaks African languages, and even then dont understand, its
deeply annoying, because far from being provocative,
hes simply re-affirming old and nasty ideas about Africa.
The Africans arent even characters, theyre just a stereotype - an entire continent brought in to score a minor point about a word. And this is how Africa is typically used in capitalist mass culture - as a simple
backdrop to Western angst, identity, or existential crisis.
His stand-in, Joe, argues that neglecting the word Negro
is an act of cowardice on the part of the liberals - that each
word unused is a foundation stone taken from democracy
itself. But like with his comments on the Nazis, what Trier doesnt appear to understand is that people dont refrain
from calling others Negroes because the word frightens
them - but rather, because they actually have some inkling
of what the word means, what its history is, and sensibly
wish to avoid bringing up the rolling atrocity of the flesh
trade and 20th century racism to make off-hand points.
Its as childish
seek
in
the
as people playing
Berlin
Holocaust
hide-andmemorial.
The whole film, from start to finish, was a open provocation - from a man who never had a clear idea of what provocation meant. Just like the Von in his name, hes allying
himself with the dominant culture (racism, sexism, xenophobia, conservatism) in order to provoke the culture that
immediately surrounds him. And, the problem is, these
lars von trier: the provocateur
nymhpomaniac
provocations are inevitably humdrum - its not exactly novel to depict a scorned woman (played by Uma Thurman) as a
bunny boiler. Its not novel to consider an entire continent as
one vague unit. Its not novel to depict liberals as hypocrites.
Its not novel to condemn political correctness as cowardice.
I can see all this on Top Gear. People willing to defend the
existing order have always been two-a-penny and they typically own the loudspeakers, so their voices ring wide and far.
Through Joe, through all his films, he wishes to paint himself as
the bold truth-teller - she never refrains from saying what she
thinks. But, in truth, his evil characters seem superhuman because real people dont act so terribly with so little cause. His
Africans dont seem like real Africans because theyre as nonspecific and vague as colonial notions of the dark continent.
The fact is, his statements arent the exception, theyre not
obscene - theyre just tired, and the people who are disgusted
are not the bourgeois, but rather those the bourgeois prey upon.
Even the explicit obscenity - the sheer amount of sex depicted, is really very run-of-the-mill. Id hazard a guess and
say if you rolled out all the miles of film of people naked and
fucking, itd be longer than the miles of film where people
are clothed and talking In rarefied atmospheres, ordinary
things become exotic. Im sure Jeremy Clarkson would be
a pariah amongst Danish academics. However, in society itself, hes paid a huge amount to dance club-footed around
the most repulsive but most pervasive prejudices of the
last century, and his statements are broadcast everywhere.

You dont have to look far to see that we dont live in the
kind of stale, hygienic world Trier imagines he lives in - obscenity is a tool for the rulers, indeed, it has become one
of the main tools of statecraft. Berlusconi and Sarkozy
were just two of the most adept employers of the obscene
method of creating resonance and engagement. Berlusconis claims to being an everyman, so crucial to his electoral success, rested primarily on the obscene abuse of his
position - abuse that his media outlets gleefully broadcast.
Perhaps Foucault knew this - his greek citizens, the masters of their own pleasure were, after all, feudal rulers
over a nation of slaves. The depiction of Damiens death
in Discipline and Punish shows a clear understanding of
the manner in which the obscene display can express and
perpetuate sovereign power. Trier, seems to be totally unaware - and so, the truth-telling becomes tawdry and tasteless. Theres no ambiguity in his defence of obscenity, and
theres no subtlety in Seligman, its imagined detractor.
Its a clever film, its a funny film, its sensitive in its depiction of depression, and of what youd do to escape it. Its
beautifully made, and the acting is superb. But, ultimately,
it seems a regression from his earlier work. Trier has grown
backwards, become childish with age. His cause is that of
every 40-something wealthy would-be revolutionary bourgeois - a tired Nietzscheanism wed to a messiah complex.
63
Lars and
the real girl
On Authorial Ghosting in Nymphomaniac
nymphomaniac
64
lars and the real girl
words: mikkel frederiksen

A dark, grimy alley: snow falls melts, and drips onto the lid of a garbage
can as the camera pans in complete silence. The camera fixates on a large,
square hole, slowly zooms in, and consumes the world in darkness. Cut
to Joe, battered, bruised, crumpled in a heap, unmoving in the middle of
the alley. From complete silence, chaos erupts as rock music blares over
Joes still form, the aural indicator of an uncaring world. If rock bottom
is a place, its surely here. It is from here that Nymphomaniac unfolds.
Nymphomaniac is ostensibly a film about sex: Joe recounts her incalculable sexual exploits in an attempt to make sense of her life as if her
present misfortune is a direct consequence of the life shes led. Told to
Seligman, a Good Samaritan and erudite loner, Joes story is primarily one womans struggle to live within societys accepted norms for
women, including love, marriage, children, and most importantly, sex.
However, Nymphomaniac also exists in relation to Triers two preceding
films, Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011), together forming what
has been named the depression-trilogy, a series of films born, and dealing
with, Triers own neuroses. Together, they form a three-part mosaic of the
darkness within man: human loss, its capacity for evil, its reconciliation
with its own mortality, and, in the case of Nymphomaniac, its capacity for
self-destruction and search for identity. It is in light of their personal relevance to von Trier that Nymphomaniac, and its question of the individuals right of self-realization, becomes an even more compelling narrative.
Easily identifiable as an impromptu therapy-session, Joes decision to
tell Seligman her story is mostly for her own benefit and it sees her try
and make sense of her life and actions, but more importantly herself,
emphasizing the struggle as caused by her sexual exploits, activities that
go against the societal grain and its imposed values. Its a story of Joe
coming to terms with who or what she is, a journey made incredibly difficult by the taboo nature of the female as sexual being, and this same
controversy is exacerbated by Joes defiance of these societal constraints
in embracing the labeling as a nymphomaniac. While Joes story is her
own, the central contestation of Joes right to express her sexuality, her
personality, bears a curious resemblance to Lars von Triers own personal struggles. As a result, there is a compelling argument to be made that
Joe in many ways act as a proxy for Trier, that she provides an outlet for
Triers frustration, and that the film as a whole is a vilification of all the
societal hypocrisy that von Trier feels himself a victim of. Most important is that Nymphomaniac, when kept to its core themes of self-realization and acceptance in the face of societal outrage, is autobiographical.
65
nymphomaniac
At a now infamous press conference at the 2011 Cannes
film festival, Lars von Trier made a series of comments
that were seized upon by the media at large. Regardless of their intention, Triers remarks of anti-Semitism
and Nazi-sympathies fuelled a public outrage that culminated in the festival expelling Trier, and branding him
a persona non grata. Since then, Trier vowed to cease
all public promotion for his films, and an already reclusive filmmaker withdrew even more from the public eye.
Joe is at her lowest as Nymphomaniac begins, and the recounting of her exploits is meant to convince Seligman of
Joes bad character. Calling herself a bad person Joe tells
of her escapades, including her role in breaking apart a
marriage, the failure of her own, and her abandonment of
her child, all because of her insatiable need for sex. For
all her failings, sex remains the central part of her life, for
better or worse, and that same devotion to the indulgence
of instinctual desires remains central to Triers work.
Elements of the Cannes-controversy also find their way into
Nymphomaniac in more explicit form: the term Negro
is said by Joe, and Seligmans protestations to her use of
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the expletive sparks sermon on what she believes to be the

evils of political-correctness, saying each time a word is
prohibited, you remove a stone from the democratic foundation. This question of censorship is more readily applied
to Trier, as more than just a single word, this same idea of
censorship also extends to the silencing of an individual,
the willing into non-existence of a dissenting voice. To describe the governing bodies that decide the correctness of
a given word, idea, or person, Joe is damningly succinct:
hypocrisy. Whatever one may think of Joes, or by extension, Triers sentiments, emphasis remains on the virtue of the individuals freedom to call a spade a spade.
This freedom of expression, in whatever form, is sacred to
the ethos of Nymphomaniac, particularly when that freedom is encroached upon by the censorship of societys selfproclaimed moralists. This sentiment is further bolstered
later as Joe is forced to attend meetings for her addiction.
Made to attend meetings for sex-addicts, Joe is placed in a
closed circle in an empty theater where she is told she, and her
fellow addicts, are all the same, leveled by their common
addiction. Instructed to reduce incentive and remove exposure to the parts of their lives that lead to them indulging
lars and the real girl
their desire, Joe must remodel her home. The result: padded
edges, painted-over mirrors, and Joe lying in a near-empty
apartment, on a naked mattress, wearing gloves and coat,
completely immobilized. This complete negation, complete
whitewashing prompts Joes ire, and at the next meeting she
lambasts both the other women, the instructor, and the ideology she serves. Joe claims that they are not alike, as they
have different reasons to fuck. Whether for acceptance, for
sexs implied affection, or as misconstrued love, the other
women are addicted to the things they feel sex can grant them.
For Joe, however, sex is an end unto itself, and these meetings consequently threaten the essence of Joes existence, as
without sex, what is she really? Joes rejection of societys
opinion of her marks her claim to self-agency and self-acceptance. When Joe states that she wont be condemned by
societys morality police, she also refuses to censor her
own sexuality and her obscenity. The speech culminates
in declaration of personhood: I am a nymphomaniac, and
I love myself for it. Joe self-identifies as a nymphomaniac and rejects the labeling of sex-addict, a term laden with
judgment meant to imply an unhealthy dependency, or at
the very least, a flaw in character. What remains is a woman who wont let society tell her what to say, think, or feel.
Make no mistake, Nymphomaniac is not an uplifting bildungsroman, nor is it a triumph of one womans ability to
overcome obstacles put in her way. Joe is the first to admit
the severity of her actions, especially when her actions have
significant consequences for others. Her self-hatred is genuine, but more importantly, so is her self-acceptance at the
end, and that acceptance enables her promise at the end of the
film. Joe vows to rid herself of her own sexuality, to somehow
remove the Rosetta stone of her existence so far. A source of
her pleasure, it has also been the source of her unhappiness.
Ridding herself of her sexuality and undertaking an emotional cleansing is a task Joe is prepared to take on, however
challenging. Most importantly, she makes this decision according to her own wishes and not out of defeat. Instead of
surrender, there is a commitment borne from self-awareness.
Comparing Joes struggle to Triers career as a filmmaker
is a compelling endeavor; the possibility of personal significance in an authors work lends it emotional gravitas
and instills a sense that one is witnessing personal history being made. Whatever the case may be, Nymphomaniac is at its core about the struggle of self-realization.
If not just for von Trier, then for all of us if not a film
about one person, at least then a film about personhood.
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Rare exports: A christmas tale
68
the infernal santa claus

i n j a l m a r i h e l a n d e r s
r a r e e x p o r t s : a c h r i s t m a s ta l e
words: kate moffat
Jalmari Helanders Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, released theatrically during the festive period of 2010, unambiguously encapsulates the inflection of genre within
Finnish cinema. Rare Exports narrative is retrospective,
preceding two prior films released by Helander, Rare Exports Inc. (2003) and Rare Exports: The Official Safety
Instructions (2005). Although these initial short films
were only broadcast online, they elicited a cult fan base
that synergised Helanders full-length project. The purpose of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale was to establish characterization and narrative context, particularly
in relation to its refashioning of the Santa Claus legacy.
The film follows a young boy called Pietari (Onni Tommila)
in Northern Finland, who uncovers the true diabolical legacy
of Santa Claus; one that substitutes the widely popular, benevolent figure with a gargoylesque monster who cannibalizes transgressive young children. This uncanny beast is
aided by a legion of elderly, unclothed elves, who are busy
attempting to free their satanic czar who is encased within
the rock of a local mountain, thus also furnishing the story
with black comic elements. Pietaris discovery is confirmed
by the palpable reality of several disappearances of children
within the wider community. When its existential being is
realised, Pietari, his father Rauno (Jorma Tommila), and a
number of hapless men from the local community seek to
terminate the threat and liberate the children. In doing so,
however, Pietaris father questions the latent monetary value
of their discovery, prompting the men to set about harnessing the creatures lackey elves in exchange for payment.
Ultimately, after defeating the beast, the elves are domesticated through a process of behavioural refinement. They
are acculturated within the dynamics of Western civil conduct, allowing them to be distributed to the rest of the world
and marketed as mimetic representations of Santa himself.
This iconoclastic take on Northern cultural heritage offers us
a significant deviation from the canonical staple of the Westernized legend of Santa Claus. Coupled with a strong com-
mand of technical implementation, the narrative itself acknowledges this facet of commerce that has come to outline
the Western Santa Claus, and by extension images of Christmas itself. The film also utilizes cultural specificity related
to Finnish national cinema, dynamics rendered less visible
to an international audience. These mechanics include intertextual references to juntti comedies, a Finnish custom of humour that parodies and pastiches imprudent men, and by extension, aspects of Finnish masculinity. These elements are
epitomised by Pietaris father together with Aimo (Tommi
Korpela) and Piiparinen (Rauno Jurvonen), the two local men
seeking to retrieve their children whilst simultaneously investigating the prospective financial rewards of their venture.
Rare Exports is also somewhat dislocated within the contextual and historical coordinates of Finnish cinema through
a combination of Hollywood genre conventions and technical exploits. It also met with domestic and international
critical and financial success. One of the defining features of
this success, particularly with domestic audiences and critics, was the innovative technical feats, achievements that
certainly establish the film as a veritable contender against
its Hollywood counterparts. The post-productive efforts are
considered unparalleled, chiefly within a context that utilizes
specific Finnish cultural hallmarks. Whilst Finnish commentators lauded the film for its digital triumphs, critics outside
Finland noted the films self-reflexive deployment of Nordic
exotica. The packaging and distribution of the elves exemplifies the global covet for Nordic iconography. Simultaneously, these Nordic sentiments must be cultivated; a process
of refinement achieved through Western channels of domestication. By extension, Rare Exports typifies the fluency through which Hollywood modes of composition and
representation inflect and inform what is arguably a nationally themed narrative. One could even go as far as to say
that, with regards to thematics, Rare Exports is in fact a
regional film with its implicit focus on the culture of a small
community of remote reindeer hunters in Northern Finland. Helander also chronicles an ancestral link to the Smi
69
Rare exports: A christmas tale

people,
including
them
within
the
historicity and literature related to defeating and entrapping the beast hundreds of years previously.
As aforementioned, after annihilating this uncanny figure,
Pietari and his father set about itemising the now redundant
fleet of elves, disseminating them transnationally, arguably
underscoring the notion that the architects of transnational
Nordic consumption therefore lie within a localized context.
In exporting its own exotic, Rare Exports is perhaps not only
establishing a prophetic notion of the Nordic countries continued forthcoming transnational exchanges, but is providing
a commentary on the historical trajectory of Finnish national
cinema in its totality. It appears to posit global success as symbiotic to the dissemination of a nations substance of traditions,
whilst perpetually amending them for the post-modern age.
70
The film harnesses themes of apocalypse and rebirth, traversing the notion of Armageddon as a conduit for refashioning new beginnings. One of the ways in which Rare
Exports achieves this is through disbanding the Americanized projection of the Santa Claus heritage as devised by the
Coca-Cola Company. If one were to invert the perspective
of Jalmaris film, however, this infernal figure of the Santa Claus may indeed seek to represent this Americanized
proverbial bastion of Western iconography; the Coca-Cola
Santa itself. In this sense, not only does this perspective
dislocate Jalmaris film from a folklorist ancestry through
characterizing this malevolent Santa as a manifestation of
nefarious Americanized commerce, literally and figuratively dormant amongst the landscape of even the most peripheral parts of the world, he reconstitutes this commerce
in a manner that the Finns themselves may profit from.
the infernal santa claus
Nordic Christmas
Get in the spirit of Christmas this year with the following Scandinavian christmas films and shows.
Fanny and Alexander
American students became fascinated with the Christmas selection in Ingmar Bergmans Fanny and Alexander,
especially the traditional Swedish lngdans where the entire
household dance in a single file through the spatious apartment of Alexanders grandmother. The lngdans is only one
of several cultural details in the carefully staged Christmas
scenes.
- Birgitta Steene, Doing the Alexander: On Christmas Motifs in Bergmans Fanny and Alexander, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, vol 3, no
3, 2013
cabin fever
Mona J. Hoel uses Christmas and the Norwegian cabin to

comment on the increasingly complex and transnational
nature of contemporary society, where people move and
marry freely across international borders. The film represents Norway as a small coutnry struggling to maintain its
self image in a period of globalisation.
- Ellen Rees, Transnational Christmas in Mona J. Hoels Dogme 95 film
Cabin Fever, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, vol 3, no 3, 2013
journey to the christmas star
Journey to the Christmas Star was released in Norwegian

cinemas in 1976, and was first broadcast by NRK in 1993.
In 1996 came a repeat broadcast, and since then it has been
shown every year, becoming part of Norwegian christmas
ritual.
- Louis Rocha Antunes, Thematic Segmentation and Acting Style in
Journey to the Christmas Star, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, vol 3,
no 3, 2013
71
aerobics: a love story
p r e s e n t i n g m e n ta l i l l n e s s i n c i n e m a
words: emma robinson
Anders Rune
Anders Rune b 1970. Director. Art-house and fashion director Anders Rune is known for making controversial commercials and music videos the last 20 years in his native Sweden,
working for high-end brands as Volkswagen, Ikea, Adidas,
Fila to name a few. His quirky and odd Swedish kitchensink style turned to the big screen with his debut Aerobics
A Love Story in 2014. The award winning director is now
working on his Hollywood-debut.
Emma: So, how is Aerobics: A Love Story going?
Anders Rune: The film is going okay. I have sent it to twenty
festivals, and it keeps getting submitted and receives some
nice reviews. I think people like it. Thats not what I expected.
Have you got any screenings coming up?
There is a screening in Stockholm for a select audience of
handicapped people.
What inspired you to make a film about people with handicaps?
72
It has been a long challenge. I have actually made quite a few

projects along the same lines [as Aerobics: A Love Story]:
people in the margins of society and who has the right to
love something. Ive incorporated that into music videos and
commercials before, and its been a really nice contrast to
see a handicapped person in a beauty video or prostitutes as
fashion models. Ive used drug addicts in love stories. I want
to try and challenge how we as people see other people in the
margins of society.
How do you think Sweden, and Scandinavia in general, treat
people with differences?
Its probably the same all over the globe, that we see them as
second rated humans, almost. Its not that we are prejudiced;
its just that we see that they are weaker than us and that they
need help from someone. We see them as less than us. Which
is horrible.
There have been a number of Scandinavian films over the
past decade that have touched on similar issues. The first
one that Ill bring up is The Idiots by Lars von Trier. That
film received a lot of criticism because it portrayed handicapped people in a negative way by depicting characters
who pretended to be disabled. When approaching a potentially controversial subject, how do you make sure you treat
the subject well?
There was a lot of choices in the film [Aerobics]. For example, I couldnt let Janne be normal. I had to make him this
oaf (as you guys describe it): a quirky, crazy person. If he
had been a normal person then it wouldve been almost like
a rape situation, or questions of taking advantage of Maria in
the film. So, theres a lot of balance. Some people actually
think that I overstepped the boundaries a little. I have been
critiqued, mostly by other directors. I dont know. And of
course I dont care, either.
What do they say?
They say that it feels like I am taking advantage of them
[those with handicaps]. As a group. But thats also good, because I told Marina and Victor (the lead actors) that I wanted
the audience to first look down on them, feel pity on them,
and then to feel ashamed of those emotions towards the end
of the film. So that was pre-planned, in that respect. But its a
fine line, of course. The most important thing is the question
the audience has to answer: Who has the right to love?
And another film that I know of is a Norwegian film called
Elling. And it too deals with mental disability. It has the
protagonists conforming to society and that film is regarded
as one of the best Norwegian films of the last decade which
leads to the question do Scandinavians want people to fit
in, or be a little bit different. In Aerobics they stay different
and everyone is happy with that, and in that sense it is a good
thing. Thats why the film is so successful. Do you think these
people should conform and fit in?
I completely understand. Actually, in the Swedish theatre,
which is an art-form which you guys unfortunately cant see
as much, there is less conformity being demanded by the
people in the margins. I think that Elling is one example, it is
not something telling about the Scandinavian film world, so
to speak. It is just one film. Actually it has layers of romantic comedy and pure comedy. So, it has to do about leaving
the place they were living in, this mental institution, and to
conform to living in society, not just being a normal person.
I hear what you are saying, but there is not a lot of examples
of Elling films. In theatre, its actually the other way around.
Our biggest and most famous screenplay writer Lars Norn.
Hes very big here. Hes touched these issues perhaps in the
same way I did. Just portrayal of people in the margins.
Are there any Scandinavian filmmakers that you took influence from, or any particular films that you watched?
Nothing that really has to do with the story in my film, but I
really like the film Happiness, of course. I like when you see
people really naked and honest, so any film that are really
honest I like. Theres a Swedish director called Roy Andersson, which of course you know, and Roy has made a lot of
commercials, and in Sweden we call it the Roy Andersson
or the ACNE style ACNE is a big media house that does
these quirky fun commercials using the same style as my
film. So its like a Scandinavian thread if you want to put it
like that. From Roy Andersson to ACNE, and some people
from ACNE became TRAKTOR, which is a successful production company collective of Swedes in Los Angeles. Its
hard to say that I have one specific reference.
marina nystrm
Marina Nystrm is a 29 year old freelance actress living in
Stockholm, Sweden, and working at the Stockholm City
Theatre. In the film, she plays the protagonist Maria, who
falls in love with Janne and must overcome obstacles in order to be with him.
Emma: About Aerobics, how did you become involved with
the project?
Marina: Well I didnt know Rune (director) at all, and he
contacted me on Facebook and email. He had seen a You/
tube clip that I had been playing in, and contacted me on
Facebook and Email wanting to know if I could do a casting
for the role of Maria. I came to Stockholm and did an audition, and got the role!
So for the role you had to play as someone with a mental
illness. Thats such a touchy subject, and if you portray it
the wrong way people can get easily offended. How did you
prepare for the role? Did you do any kind of research?
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I have always been very curious about people who are outside the frames of society. Ever since I was small I have been
perceptive in reading body language and particular expressions from them. I based Maria on different types of people
Ive seen on the town and when working in a retirement
home with handicapped people. So Ive picked traits from
here and there and put them in a small sack for Maria.
Were there any films, Scandinavian or international, that you
watched to prepare for the role?
Any films? When I was small I loved Gilbert Grape, so
there might be some inspiration from there. I didnt look at
the film to prepare Maria, the film was somewhere inside me.
Emma: Was there any scenes you felt odd to do, maybe a bit
out of your comfort zone?
No, because I think thats one of my strengths to be an actress, and be very brave. I love to get out of the comfort zone.
I want to be an actress that can have many colours, so I wont
just receive conventional roles. I want to broaden my horizons. So I love doing these roles, and its my dream to continue to have special roles.
How do you think Scandinavians and Swedes treat people
with a mental handicap, overall in society?
Pretty well, because Sweden is a very aware/cautious, so
Ive experienced. So there is a lot weve thought about, such
as cafes which have ramps, toilets for handicaps, and were
very conscious of them. Overall Id say its very adapted to
them.
where they work with handicaps for instance. The film can
even be a [smaller film] so that they can make their way to
schools and to establishments where one would meet handicaps. I think its really great Victor and myself, Victor who
plays Janne, that he has the [body image] that he has, and I
have the one that I have and that were not ideal, this I find
is great and good and important in the film and that we dont
represent any type of Hollywood image and that it is outside
of the box. And I hope that people who do go to see this film
can see this as a portrait of themselves that they can identify
with.
What do you think of the reception of Scandinavian films in
other countries, for instance with the popularity of Nordic
Noir and Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, what do you think
of the current success of Scandinavian film?
What I think of it? I think its fantastic! I have a tremendous
amount of friends who have many filmshave you heard
about Ronnie Sandahl in Underdog? I have worked with
the director before in a smaller movie, and I know that Bianca Krnlf she went to my school, we were classmates. So I
think its so fun that its going so well for Scandinavian films
nowadays. But I havent been able to see so many films, so
I cant judge the films, but I hear in the media that [whoosh]
its a huge wind of Swedish cinema thats lauded and honoured out there, and thats fantastic. But Im not too attuned
to Nordic films or European, but when one works mostly
with theatre then one tends to be [in the box] so one doesnt
get much time to see a lot of films. But I think its just fun, so
[heja heja film alts]
There have been some films released in Scandinavia recently

that sort of critique mental illness, such as a Norwegian film
called Elling, which sort of ends with people conforming to
society and that film became very popular whereas your film
shows they can be individual and different and stand out. So
do you think Scandinavians try to get them to integrate into
society, or do you think they should be more individuals, for
the lack of a better term?
Any plans for the future?
Oh god yes, what is good about Aerobics is that they are

their own people, Janne and Maria. I hope that this film can
reach out to a larger audience, and look to establishments
There is a review of Aerobics: A Love Story on page 102
74
I want to direct! Yes, I have done small small things, films,

before. But now I work in the theatre, as I said before when
youre working in the theatre youre inside a box and you
have no time to write a script or do movies. But my future
plan is to write scripts and direct it so I really hope that I can
do a movie and then send it to you!
misantropolis
misantropolis
a n e w h o p e f o r s c a n d i n av i a n yo u t h d r a m a s
words: sandra fijn van draat
According to the Danish newspaper Information the young
people are more unhappy about life than ever before, more
stressed than older generations - and thats despite the fact
that we never have had so many opportunities for ourselves.
So welcome the competitive state, in which you are your own
fortune and its exclusively your own responsibility to have
success, love and personal balance. The competitive state, fear
of being insignificant and general boy-trouble are all themes
that are being touched in the new TV-series Misantropolis.
Sebastian (Leading character), Christopher Kryer Magelund (Director) and Mads Schnoor (Producer) had vision
and drive. A drive to tell a new story about the miserable
lifes of young people. A life which is not always fun and
games, but where you are taking real issues in consideration, but still with a sense of humor namely the bittersweetness of life. A show made by young people for young
people. Finally, some credibility from the consignor. The
name Misantropolis is a contraction between Misanthrope and Polis it stands for the city that hates people.
But it is also a state of mind, where you feel like everything
is against you especially the city. A state of mind where
your surroundings are so big, that you and your self-esteem
feel small. Although the series is produced in Aarhus, it is
not a direct reference to Aarhus but to bigger cities in general and how they make you feel. About the urban life and
how it can effect you in a self destructing and negative way.

The story takes Sebastian and his issues (Sebastian Gerdes)
in consideration. Sebastians wants to be significant and
interesting as human, but like all human-beings who aims
to be unique - he thinks he is just another regular, boring
and stereotyped youngster with an ambition. Lena Dunham (Girls) thinks that she is a voice of her generation, or
at least a voice of some generation Sebastian is actually
a voice of a generation. An important voice of a generation that proclaims to be the happiest people in the world,
though its a fact that the younger generation is the most
unhappy of all times. The absurdity about the contrast is
too high - and life for the young generation and for Sebastian, both on television and in real life is indeed bittersweet.
In the beginning of the first episode, Sebastian looses his
girlfriend because she finds him too boring. A nightmare for
a teenager who thinks he is unique. He lies to himself and his
friend and tells that he is different than other guys. He thinks
that the other guys do a lot of activities with their girlfriends
constantly, to compensate for the fact that they are boring at
home. Still, he is heartbroken but with a chance to shine. He
gets the opportunity to play as a DJ at a local club. Obviously
nervous, but still with some confidence he gets on the stage
to rock the house, only to find out that the sound is only is
his headphones and not in the speakers. A symbol that his
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own self-destructing thoughts are constantly awake, and the

real audience neither understand nor hear him. Suddenly on
the middle of the stage he is overexposed and naked, and his
ex-girlfriend is there to scream in an evil tone that he is boring. Luckily it is just a dream, but feeling overexposed and
embarrassed is a constant state of his minds. Without spoiling
too much of the plot for the first episode, Sebastian will chock
the audience again later on and he will eventually get out of
his boring comfort-zone but without loosing his character.
The series are created by young enthusiast filmmakers, who
are all willing to work free in order to create a project they
believe in. They believe in it so much, that they have been
publishing it for free on Vimeo so everybody can enjoy it.
Though they aim to sell it at some point, it so far has been
an expensive gift to the people from the crew to create the
series. They believe so much in the project, that they keep
on producing more to the people . From the 1st December,

the first two episodes will be online on their Misantropolis
Vimeo account with English subtitles for foreigners to enjoy.
I enjoy spotting new potential dramas and comedy, especially when its a combination between those two genres,
namely a Dramady. A genre that intends to portrait the real
life and drama of the people with a sense of absurd and trustworthy humor to it. The actor Sebastian is called Sebastian
in real life and both Director, Producer and Sebastian himself sees resemblance of the real Sebastian and the fictionalized Sebastian. Both the same person, but with different
views on life and the environment that surrounds them. I
like when you can see the actors personality within the
portrayed character, it makes the series authentic and realistic. Im impressed with the series, and I think its a strong
portrayal of the weak and unique generation of our time.
You can find Misantropolis on Vevo. There is a link on our website at cinemascandinavia.com
76
Lukas Holgersson
words: lizzie taylor
Lukas Holgersson is big in Sweden right now. At the age
of 13, this fiery haired boy is already the star of a successful series of childrens detective films (Lasse Majas Detektivbyr) based on the popular Swedish books of the
same name, written by Martin Widmark and illustrated
by Helena Willis. Before its big screen outing, Lasse Majas was the 2006 SVT Christmas calendar broadcast. The
second film in the series Skuggor ver Valleby (Shadows over Valleby) landed in Swedish cinemas mid-October. Lukas has also landed the lead role in the family
blockbuster Pojken med guldbyxorna (The boy with the
golden trousers) which hit Swedish cinemas in September.
Lasse Majas Detektivbyr:

Skuggor ver Valleby (2014)
Lasse (Lukas Holgersson) and Maja (Amanda Pajus) are
two young children working for the local police force in
the small town of Valleby. The police chief (Tomas Norstrm ) isnt the most competent man and so they risk being closed down. When the prestigious auction company
Granats comes to town, Lasse and Maja see the opportunity to save Valleby police station and their friend by doing whatever it takes to protect the wealthy possessions.
They set up high-tech surveillance systems and arrange
for round the clock protection, but it fails almost instantly. Pieces from the auction start to go missing and its reported that the notorious shadow art thief has returned.
With pressure from the neighbouring towns chief officer,
Lasse and Maja really have their work cut out for them!
Based on a popular series of childrens books, LasseMajas
is an interesting take on the crime genre. It adds an interesting layer to an already strongly developed genre by adapting and reinterpreting characteristics of the crime genre and
placing them into a more colourful and playful milieu aimed
at children. Unfortunately, LasseMajas is only on general
release in Sweden. Theres no international release so far, but
with Widmarks books slowly being translated into English
perhaps it isnt long before the films are released in Europe.
Skuggor ver Valleby is a rather simple tale and those
who are clued up to the crime genre can guess who the
criminal is straight away. This might seem like a waste of

time for most adults but the film is much more fun when
you try to place yourself in the mind-set of a child and enjoy the elements of comedy that are on offer. Solsidans
Henrik Dorsin plays the prestigious auction owner, CarlMagnus. Dorsin is a strong comedic actor and most of the
laughs come from his characters over-exaggerated French
accent. Carl-Magnus is also fitted out with a sidekick, the
faithful but shifty Necker, played by Sofia Rnnegrd.
Actress, comedian and TV chat show host Babben Larsson is also along for the ride as Vallebys media reporter.
Lasse and Maja are very mature for their age and they have
adapted so quickly into the adult world. With the advancement
in technology and the reliance on its uses, it seems only natural that children who are at the forefront of all this change
and development are the ones solving the crimes. Child actors Lukas Holgersson and Amanda Pajus have also matured
in their roles. In the first outing Von Broms Hemlighet
(2013) Amanda was dressed like a young Pippi Longstocking with pink hair in pigtails and now shes emitting more of
a Nancy Drew vibe. Lukas has traded in his spiky hair and
skaterboy style for a more mature, slick TinTin appearance.
A lot of Swedish children are encouraged to think independently and their most popular role models can be
found in classic literature i.e. Pippi Longstocking and
Emil created by Astrid Lindgren.1 Lasse and Maja represent this Swedish custom by being one step ahead of
all the adults; they think for themselves and question and
adapt current methods of crime solving in order to crack
each case. They dont hold the same position in society
as Astrid Lindgrens romanticised characters, rather they
offer a new kind of fantasy and escapism for children.
Between 1946-1953 Astrid Lindgren created the character Kalle Blomkvist (Bill Bergson in English), a
young boy who solved crimes with his friends without the help of adults.2 These stories seem to have more
in common with the likes of The Secret Seven (Enid
Blyton) but Lindgrens child detective most definitely helped to pave the way for the kid detective subgenre.
This series of films are also the first films in Sweden to
77
L o o k i n g f o r s o m e t h i n g a b i t d i f f e r e n t f r o m S c a n d i n av i a n c i n e m a? W h y n o t i n d u l g e i n s o m e
b e l o v e d c h i l d h o o d c l a s s i c s r e c e n t ly a d a p t e d f o r t h e s c r e e n a n d s ta r r i n g S w e d e n s
i t- c h i l d
lukas holgersson
78
lukas holgersson
make use of green screen technology. The objects the actors come into contact with are real but all the sets are
digitally created. It enhances the playfulness of the story
and the films milieu. In fact, the film has a similar feel
to the Icelandic childrens television series LazyTown.
Pojken med guldbyxorna (2014)

Film posters for Pojken med guldbyxorna contain the
quotes This years biggest adventure film, and A classic
for a new generation. Based on the 1967 novel by Max Lundgren, the film already has a lot of nostalgia built around it.
Its a beloved Swedish classic that was adapted into a TV series in 1975. There are plenty of adults who grew up with the
book and the 70s TV version and now they can experience
a new, updated, action-packed version with their children.
The film previewed in Gothenberg on August 4th and then Danske Bank sponsored the
film and held free previews for its customers
in Stockholm a few weeks before the film went national. The film then became the number 1 box office
smash in Sweden in its first week of national release.3
Mats (Lukas Holgersson) is a young teenager forced to move
in with his father. His father hasnt played much of a role in
his life so Mats is extremely reluctant. However, one day luck
strikes when hes out with his friend, David (Olle Krantz),
and comes across a pair of trousers. When he puts on the
trousers and reaches into the pockets he finds some money.
At first its just small notes and then as time moves on the
notes increase in value. Naturally, David and Mats go shopping; buying everything they could ever wish for, but the
trousers become a burden and theres a local businessman
out looking for the trousers and hes willing to kill for them.
Meanwhile, Mats father is chasing the story of the missing
money which is disappearing from hundreds of banks. He
thinks theres a conspiracy and hes soon a target. Mats must
race against the clock to save his family and restore order.
Pojken med guldbyxorna makes many references to the
classic TV series, including setting Mads in the same yellow
and blue Swedish t-shirt worn by actor Harald Hamrell in the
television series. But this is a classic for a new generation
and director Ella Lemhagen and her team of writers have
favoured the James Bond action look. The opening credits
bathed in fire strongly imitate the classic James Bond credit
sequences. Mats also finds himself with a female sidekick,

blue-haired Lisbeth Salander wannabe Livli (Nina Sand).
When youre a child and you first learn about money or
receive money it burns a hole in your pocket; youre itching to spend it. In fact, no matter how old you are there
are always lessons to be learned about money and whats
the best thing to do with it. Mats has more money than he
could ever dream of, but the film poses the question: can
money really buy happiness? There are some touching
scenes in which Mats tries to help the homeless and even
send money to charity, but when he learns that the money isnt created out of thin air he has a real responsibility.
So far, there are no plans for an international release even
though the film has an extremely international style and
moral message that can be translated the world over.
whats next for lukas?

This may be the last we see of Lukas for a while as he has
admitted to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that just
now hes tired of lead roles because they take so much
time. He has other commitments such as school and he
finds it very strange to be called an actor by his friends.4
LasseMajas Detektivbyr: Skuggor over Valleby and

Pojken med guldbyxorna are still on general release in
Swedish cinemas.
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cph:dox 2014
Reviewed by frederik bove
the
80 look of silence
cph:Dox
the look of silence

It might surprise people to hear it, but Joshua Oppenheimer is a Denmark-based filmmaker, and The Act of
Killing was considered so Danish that it was almost the
countrys submission for the Foreign Language Academy
Award last year. The director is American, and its shot
in Indonesia, but most of the rest of the crew is Danish.
The Act of Killing was the opening film at DOX two years
ago, and went on to win the DOX award. Its unique style
and crushing content made it a great success abroad last year
as well. However, there was some critique, that the film let
the killers off the hook a bit by never including the victims
point of view. But Oppenheimer always considered The Act
of Killing as part of a pair of films with The Look of Silence, and this second film expands the picture immensely
and includes those confrontations that the first film perhaps
needed. The Look of Silence also includes the recordings
that began it all, made back in January 2004, featuring two
killers taking turns acting out the massacre they participated
in at Snake River back in 1965. This new film features Adi,
an optometrist whose brother Ramli was among the murdered back then, who seeks out the old killers, checks their
sight, and confronts them with their role in the murders. The
killers happily brag about the things they did, but when confronted they backpedal, become angry, unsure of themselves.
It becomes clear how damaging to society the whole history
has been, not just with the massacres themselves, but that the
regime was able to wash their hands of it, and make it fit as
an unfortunate but necessary part of the Cold War. As Joshua
Oppenheimer himself stated at the Q&A after the showing,
the delusional bravura displayed by the killers is a systemic
problem, something caused by the equivalent of the Nazis
winning World War II and convincing the rest of the world
that the Shoah had been a necessary thing to do. As in the first
film, in places you get the feeling that the killers themselves
were used. A key factor in the Indonesian genocide was that
it wasnt done by state machinery, but by regular people. Per-
haps that is why it became ritualised, with several of the killers admitting to drinking their victims blood. The state just
gathered the unfortunate prisoners, and then transported the
prisoners to the execution spots, and then stood by waiting
a proper distance away. When Adi confronts an old militia
member, who later on became a politician, the guy says that
the killings were spontaneous. When Adi says that they
were clearly organised, the guy admits as much, but says that
the popular feeling of hatred was what he meant was spontaneous. And furthermore, the victims cant have been that unhappy, since otherwise he would have never been reelected
ever since, and he obviously does not intimidate anyone into
voting for him, no, and by the way, where does Adi live?
Adi the optometrist sadly enough never makes any of the
killers look at the world differently. They cannot admit
to themselves that they did wrong. But at a few points, he
changes the view of the killers families. In one interview a
daughter participates, talking happily about how she learned
that her father killed a bunch of communists. When she
learns about the savage details, for instance that he drank the
blood of the victims to remain sane, she asks Adi for forgiveness. A son blames Adi for opening the wound and states
that if he hadnt begun his research, Adi and him could have
been much more friendly. Adi coldly answers that the victims always knew exactly who had done the killings, stunning the family. Perhaps Adi and Oppenheimer, and the
rest of the crew, including many Indonesians still listed in
the credits as Anonymous have already been successful
in changing some Indonesian minds. Oppenheimer also explained that they never even send The Act of Killing to the
Indonesian censors, since they were sure it would be banned.
But The Look of Silence has already premiered in Indonesia, to an audience of thousands, and Adi was met with long
standing ovations. And this time, they are going for approval
from the censors. In other words, this project, on top of being extremely emotional and brave documentary filmmaking, might actually be changing the world for the better!
81
1989
This year, the CPH:DOX festival staged a grander gala opening than ever before. Celebrating 25 years since the Berlin
wall fell, and having chosen the new film 1989, from Erzsbet
Rcz and former Oscar-nominee Anders stergaard, which
deals with exactly this event, as the opening film, the festival went all out on the idea of documentary film facilitating
important discussions, with an opening talk by American EU
Advisor Jeremy Rifkin, a filmed hello by the President of the
European Council Martin Schulz, followed by post-film discussions with former Hungarian prime minister Mikls Nmeth and a panel discussion with former Danish prime minister and former president of the European SocialDemocrats
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and former Danish climate minister
Lykke Friis. And as if that wasnt grand enough, the whole
thing was live-streamed to 57 cities all over Europe. It was
an almost insanely grand experience, an unforgettable moment was Mr Nmeth walking to his seat as the films credits
rolled, but then staying standing up in the darkness since the
credits music was the Hungarian national anthem. After the
film, the whole room gave the former prime minister, who in
1989 played a small but pivotal role in ending the cold war,
a standing ovation; what happened in the 56 other cities was
of course impossible to know, but it felt like a pretty big moment in Copenhagen at least for the opening to a film festival.
The film feels very grand as well. A great documentary film
needs a great narrative or some great visuals, or perhaps even
both. Anders stergaard has been known to invent both if
he needs to. For his 2003 film Tintin and I, he had a set
of revealing interviews with Herg, the inventor of Tintin,
and made it come to live through animations of Herg fitting with the audio, and recreations of panels from the comic
books as 3-dimensional panoramas. In his Oscar-nominated
Burma Vjs from 2008, he had amazing clandestine footage
from the Burma uprising in 2007, and fit it all into a story
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about one Visual Jockey having to follow the uprising from

exile in Thailand. Well, 1989 is his most daring creation yet.
The story of what happened in 1989 has been told many
times, but stergaard and Rcz find a new way of telling it
through the interrelated stories of Mikls Nmeth, the Hungarian prime minister who opened the border between Hungary and Austria, tearing the first hole in the Iron Curtain,
and Kurt-Werner Schultz, the last man killed on the border
between east and west. Even more daring, stergaard and
Rcz patch the film together mainly from archival footage of
the famous politicians, with actors speaking dialogue to fit
the mouth movements, and sometimes intercut with actors
playing secretaries, advisors, etc. At times, it feels like the
animated segments from Tintin and I, or an animated documentary like Brett Morgens Chicago 10. At other times,
the film almost turns into montage essays on the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 or spring military parades in Eastern
Germany, complete with Carmina Burana blearing on the
soundtrack. For a viewer not attuned to what the film is doing, I can imagine it will seem laughable. For anybody able
to go with the flow, its an experience unlike most other. Then
youll see a stunned Gorbatjov having to find his glasses after Helmuth Kohl calls to tell him the borders between east
and west will be opened, and a befuddled Ceausescu being
cut down to size by Gorbatjov at the Bucharest meeting in
July 1989. You have never seen this before, for the simple
reason that such footage does not exist. But seeing it anyway,
through the skilled manipulations of the documentary crew,
makes history come to live in a way rarely seen. And once
the now well known end arrives, and the people of Berlin
are dancing on top of the wall that insane night in November 1989, it all is very powerful. You probably wont get to
see Mikls Nmeth standing in the dark while the credits
roll, but itll probably be a satisfactory ending nonetheless.
concerning violence
In 2011, Gran Hugo Olsson struck gold with The Black
Power Mixtape 1967-1975, a documentary about the Afroamerican struggles in the late sixties and early seventies,
based on archival footage found in the Swedish television
archives. Now he has dug up more material, this time on
Africas struggle for decolonisation, and used Frantz Fanons
classic The Wretched of the Earth as the guiding text. Nine
chapters go over different aspects of the battle. Some are
fairly short and simple, such as an interview with a black
man whod been tortured by a colonial regime, or a depiction of the shocking depths of racism in some people from
Rhodesia one man says he thinks of going to South Africa, where whites stands a chance, since the scale is 4 blacks
to 1 white, and hes sure he could kill four Africans before
they killed him. Other are more developed, such as a depiction of a strike at the LAMCO mine in Liberia, co-owned
by Swedes, where the Swedish owners ask the government to send in the army, to avoid dealing with the workers demands, and then fires the troublemakers and evicts
them from their company housing. There are scenes from
all over Africa, but the ones from the Portuguese colonies
are the most shocking, showing more savage violence.
Frantz Fanon was quite radical, though as an introduction
by Indian writer Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak explains, his
book was misinterpreted in the foreword by Jean-Paul Sartre
as advocating for violence, when Fanon thought the violent
tendencies of the oppressed colonial subject was inevitable
but tragic. RnB star Lauren Hill narrates the film, with a
captivating voice, and words are at times interposed on
screen. The imagery is obviously tough to take, with colonial
soldiers shooting livestock and burning houses, and clips of
mutilated victims of the struggle. As a European, the guilt
cph:Dox
can be hard to stomach as well, especially because the Swedish journalists by design focused quite a lot on the crimes
of Swedish participants, who would normally be considered
more benign than the actual colonial powers. But in an interview with two missionaries in Tanzania, it is clear how
their benign navety contributed to the problem: Theyve
banned the local traditional polygamy in their society, even
though they cant point to an argument against it in the bible,
and theyve focused on building a very needed church in a
city that lacks medical clinics and schools as well. The final
chapter, called Raw Materials, turns into a Marxist critique
of the world capitalist system that keeps Africa as an exporter of materials, to be used elsewhere. The film then jumps
to 1987, to an interview with Thomas Sankara, President of
Burkina Faso, who critiques the IMF and the policy of rich
countries selling their surplus foodstuff in Africa, bankrupting local farmers. We are then informed he was assassinated
later that year, during a coup supported by France and the
US (and led by Blaise Compaor, who coincidentally was
removed from power just a few weeks back, on October
31st). While much of the problems of the film feels like it
could be put in a faraway past, by an onlooker determined
to do so, in this moment we are reminded that the problems
remained for far longer, and continues to go on in new ways.
The film is a thorough examination of the crimes of the west. But
it is quite impressive the work that was being done by Swedish
journalists in those days, they werent pulling any punches.
There is a short segment in The Black Power Mixtape where
an American editor attacks the Swedish media as being antiAmerican. If those journalists had a reputation of standing
up to power and examining the struggles of the dispossessed,
then Gran Olsson does a fine job of continuing their work.
83
Nitrate Flames
Olmo and the seagull
What makes a film Scandinavian? This one blurs the line a

bit. Director Mirko Stopar was born in Argentina, but has
been based in Oslo since 2001, and this is a Argentinian/
Norwegian co-production. The subject is a woman who was
essential to the history of Danish cinema, though she was
French. Maria Falconetti, lead actress of Carl Th Dreyers
masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc. Her life should be
of interest to any fan of Scandinavian cinema, and the film
was presented as such, being shown in Dreyers old Dagmar
theatre, and introduced by an expert on the old master. But, as
the film showed, Falconetti herself actually disliked making
Joan of Arc, didnt think it showed her but Dreyers idea of
her, and was much more interested in modern French theater.
A co-directed feature from CPH:LAB, this time from Brazil

and Denmark. And once again, its even more international, as
the film follows an Italian-French couple as they realize that
they are pregnant. Both of the two main characters are actors,
and the title refers to the name of their unborn son as well as
the name of the play by Chekhov, which the woman, Olivia,
cant participate in anymore once the pregnancy becomes
complicated and shes forced to spend all her time at home.
Its such an interesting paradox. Dreyer thought he saw

through the chic actress layers of makeup, to the woman
underneath, who could be Joan of Arc. Almost the whole
film is close-ups of Falconettis face, what could be more
her than that?`But Falconetti was an actress through and
through, the essence of who she was pretending to be someone else. And while Dreyer tried to elevate her to a saint, Falconetti was perfectly happy being a scandalous woman, an
unmarried mother with a lover 30 years her senior. Theres
so much stuff about the roles of women, back then and still
today, in the long story of how Falconetti staged her life.
Stopar is pretty shameless about staging Falconettis life
himself, though, creating further layers in the film. The film
cuts together its narrative from archival footage, often taken out of context, and even at times presents the result as
old authentic newsreels. The film-historian was not happy
about this. It is pretty obvious that its fake though, just as
its obvious the ages of the characters fluctuate randomly, as
footage is taken from different times and cut together. Its
another staged theatrical version of Falconettis life. Perhaps
more in the spirit of the old actor, than an austere, severe,
Dreyerian one would have been. And the story of Falconettis life is much more than just that single amazing film role.
84
Its an extremely intimate portrait. One of the earliest scenes

shows Olivia peeing on her pregnancy test, and throughout
the film the camera examines her naked, pregnant body. The
film also is unflinching in its portrait of the problems and
annoyances brought on by the pregnancy, and the inability to
move anywhere. The relationship becomes quite strained, as
Olivia logically enough becomes more and more frustrated,
while her boyfriend Serge all of a sudden has to earn enough
money for the both of them. At times there are sudden breaks
in the narrative, where the actors will ask the directors what
they want them to do. As such, it also becomes a look at
performance or the lack thereof, and the exhibitionism and
bravery needed to be an actor. While the film draws attention to its own construction, most of the film doesnt read
as fake, more as a portrait of two persons who are in their
very nature theatrical. Acting is in some ways what they do.
Since this film is a production of CPH:LAB, its possible
to see the description of the proposed film from way back
when it began. Then, it was supposed to be a lot like Mrs
Dalloway, Virginia Woolfs famous modernist novel on a
day in the life of a housewife, culminating in a party. The
film apparently gave up on that construction, which would
have required a pretty complex flashback structure, but it
still concludes with a final party arranged by Olivia. A gathering for her friends from back in Italy, it gives the second
half of the film an arc with a pretty powerful payoff. However, perhaps that payoff would have felt more complete if
the party had been introduced earlier, as it is, there is a feeling that the conclusion of the film mainly concludes problems only introduced a short while before. Nevertheless,
the film is an intimate look at a life-changing experience.
cph:Dox
songs for alexis
the gold bug
An intimate look at the love between two American teenagers,

Ryan Cassata and Alexis Ann. Ryan is 18 years old, a dedicated
acoustic singer-songwriter, and, yeah, a transgender 18-year
old man. He captivates the screen from the start. Not only is he
proudly androgynous, not taking hormones, having slender
features and long dreaded hair, he also parades around shirtless, with the scars from his mastectomy still clearly visible.
How awesome is that? Hes preparing to play the main-stage
at an LBGT-festival in San Francisco, talking with his loving
mom, and Skyping with Alexis who lives on the West Coast.
The film follows a Swedish-Argentinian co-directed film

financed partly by money from a Danish festival. The film
seems to have been plotted out by the Swede, a radical feminist who wants to do a biopic on 19th century proto-feminist Victoria Benedictson, using Buenos Aires as a cheap
stand in for old Copenhagen. But some opportunity or other
opens up in New York, so Fie-Stina never makes it to Buenos Aires, and the Argentinian co-director, who hasnt read
the script well enough to understand that Victoria was a
womans name, and begun casting men for the lead role, allows a friend of his to hijack the production, rescheduling
the shoot to take place in a small town named Leandro N.
Alem, where he has discovered a great treasure of gold is
hidden. A couple financiers from France and Germany gets
told that the production will be on the life of the radical politician whom the town was named after though hed never
been to that part of the country and off everyone goes.
While in the beginning, most of the interest is held by the

struggles of the young trans-gender man, trying on fake facial hair, hoping for a surgical procedure to give him hair
around the belly button, and getting through this transition
along with his awesome family, the middle stretch of the
film turns into more of a standard teenage love story. The
couple deal with jealousy, Alexis has a friend who Ryan
is certain clearly is in love with her, and it all puts severe
strains on their relationship. It is teenagers being teenagers, and honestly, teenage histrionics, universal as they undoubtedly are, arent the most joyful thing to watch. But
then a couple of revelations bring into focus, in a short
span of time, just how much bigotry and discrimination
the young lovers have to deal with, which turns the former
slightly tiring stretch into a vessel for one cathartic scene
after another, turning the love story into one for the ages.
Songs for Alexis is a small production, the debut feature
for director Elvira Lind, funded by the New Danish Screen
program, devoted to funding low-budget productions from
upcoming directors. The film was made through the director following the Cassata family over many months, and the
results gets close to the characters to an extent rarely seen.
After the screening, a Q&A with the director and the cast
brought a few more revelations: An impromptu performance
of two new songs revealed that Ryan Cassata has progressed
quite nicely as a singer and a textwriter especially, as well
as the story of what later happened to the relationship. That
his mother Fran was amazing was clear to see from the film,
but her description of how it was to have had a girl but
then having a boy was fantastic. Once she got used to his
new name, and changing pronouns, it was easy. He is the
same person, he just has a new name, and new pronouns.
It is a crazy film. A mix between Treasure Island and Edgar

Allen Poes The Gold Bug, with a whole lot of other references thrown into the mix. Some sections are narrated by
Victoria Benedictson and Leandro N. Alem, though neither of their bio-pics ever gets made. There is a long flashback explaining the whole chain of events that led up to the
gold being buried. Fie-Stina begins phoning the production
constantly, demanding that the old male politician will be
played by a woman anyway, to make a feminist point. At
some point, several counterplots begin hatching among people in on the existence of the treasure. The whole film had
a very Latin American feel, like something out of Borges,
or a film by the late great Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz.
If one likes this kind of thing, the film is an overstuffed delight.
So much goes on at all times, with for instance Argentinian
men discussing South American history in the foreground
while the French producer runs around with the leading lady
in the background. History, politics, gender, literature, everything seems mixed up in this weird concoction. The Argentinian director is a major francophile, so some scenes in the filmwithin-the-film is staged like homages to old sixties French
cinema. All in all, the film probably does not add up to much,
and it does feel a bit longer than it should. The visual style
matches the low-key adventurous spirit of the plot, but apart
from some fantastic blocking, its not stunning or anything.
A good, interesting film, unlike most made in Scandinavia.
85
the newsroom:
off the record
Paper journalism is having a tough time, especially tabloid journalism like Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet.
This film, following life at the paper for a year, sees circulation numbers dropping from 60.000 to 50.000 and
desperation taking over. Its recommended to anyone interested in the state of news-media, though the circumstances surrounding Ekstra Bladet are very, very particular.
In the year the film shows, Ekstra Bladet started a campaign
to get two Danish sailors, Eddy Lopez and Sren Lyngbjrn, released from their captivity in Somalia. We watch as
the reporters dig up information on the luxury houses the
Shipping Firms bosses are buying, through the critique the
paper got, claiming that their excessive focus on the sailors made the prize higher and even prolonged the negotiations. We watch through the nail-biting moments when the
hostages are finally released, and the journalists are waiting
for the confirming call, competing with tv-news to be the
first to break the story of the release. And we watch as everything goes wrong afterwards, as the hostages themselves
complains of the undignified way they felt the paper treated
them, and the Danish Pressenvn gives severe criticism
and forces the paper to publish a correction on the front page.
It would take a very smart and driven person to resolve this

paradox, to make it seem as if the populism is giving voice
to the people, rather than just exploiting lowest common denominator to sell more papers. Unfortunately, chief editor
Poul Madsen is decisively not that man. A smart man, with a
love for paper journalism and an eye for a great story, throughout all the confessionals to the camera as well as the explaining he is forced to due to the public, he can never get rid of a
sense of being driven by vanity rather than journalistic idealism. He is constantly tweeting and comparing his amount
of other, less popular people. In an early scene, the paper
does a real journalistic coup, breaking a story on the wasteful
spending being done by former and in-all-probability-unlesssomething-really-surprising-happens soon to again be Prime
Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen. At the press conference
they force Mr Rasmussen to give, you see in the annoyance
of the important politician exactly why a society need brave
journalists speaking truth to power. But then, at the end of
the film, when Poul Madsen has to hold his own conference
answering questions about the critique on the hostage-story,
we see much the same annoyance at him. The leader of the
paper does not seem that different from the other leaders they
are trying to keep in place, and that realization is a sad one.
Into this thread is woven a multitude of smaller stories. A

young intern one of only a handful willing to intern at the
troubled paper gets her first front-page story on a mishap
in an ambulance, gets to take home the paper and the giant
flyer promoting that days paper all over town, but also gets
a complaint from the authorities since the headline was sensationalized until it became misleading, and gets told that
she was rude. This perfectly encapsulates the paradox at the
paper: The excitement from trying to create the hard-hitting
story that will drive national discussion, but also the unsatisfactory feeling resulting from the journalistic compromising
having to be done to sell the story the Ekstra Bladet way.
Ekstra Bladet is probably the most hated newspaper in Denmark, and its web-page community, called Nationen is famous for its harsh tone, bordering on racist. It should not be
compared to something like News of the World, however.
While the film shows the paper making mistake after mistake
in its quest for survival, there never seems to be anything
illegal going on that would have happened in the same
period at a weekly called Se & Hr, incidentally. Instead,
its a bunch of people, editors included, doing their best in
a situation which seems to be actively hostile to good, quality journalism, and even succeeding at times, in spite of all
odds. It is a depressing portrait, but a captivating one as well.
86
cph:Dox
the reunion
CPHDOXs main job is to show the cream of the crop of documentary filmmaking each year, but the festival also shows
some older films, and many films of a more hybrid nature.
Anna Odells The Reunion is both of those things. The film,
which premiered last year at the Venice Film Festival, before
becoming the biggest audience success at last years DOXfest, and then winning two Guldbagge-awards for best film
and best script, consists of two parts: An imagining of what
could have happened if Anna Odell had been invited to the
20-year reunion party for the class in which she spent nine
hellish years as a victim of bullying. And reconstructions
of what happened when Anna Odell showed the first part to
those exact classmates who had done the bullying as kids,
and as adults didnt have the guts to invite her to a reunion.
The first part is cringeworthy like Thomas Vinterbergs great
The Celebration was. Odell plays herself, with an unsparing
glare fastened on the classmates doing their best to shrink
away. First she gives a speech on her experience as a loser in the hierarchy. At that point, some class mates thinks
shes brave and gave them food for thought. But then one of
the cool people stands up, and gives one of those speeches
on how special the class was, and on a great hiking trip in
sixth grade. Anna immediately stands up again and attacks
him for his words, mentioning how she was bullied on that
trip, even kicked in the crotch. At that point, its clear to everyone, that there will be no way out of this painful situation, and everything just goes further downhill from there.
The second part is easier to watch. Some of the classmates meet up, watches the film, says that they understand
that what happened was wrong. Others does their best not
to meet with her, and seemingly havent grown a bit. Due
to this, its actually some of the more sympathetic characters who gets attacked the most by Odell. This is one of the
greatest strengths of the film, and the reason why it will hit
everyone in the gut, whether they were a bully, a popular

kid who didnt stand up to the bullies, or an awkward loser,
who followed along with the rest, or perhaps lashed out at
those even less popular. I imagine that will be almost everyone. Odell points out two guys as being the worst: the
awful, awful kid, who told her she should just kill herself,
and who grew up to be an awful, awful man, whom the rest
of the classmates shakes their head at now. But also the popular kid, whose support would have meant the world, but
who never did anything. That guy is trying to understand,
but clearly irked at being attacked, even though Odell freely
admits he did nothing wrong. This reviewer was transported
back to his own childhood, wondering about a number of episodes, and his own roles on both side of the divide. Its not
a fully pleasant experience. But there can be no doubt, that
with this, her first feature film, Anna Odell puts herself up
there with Ruben stlund (Play, Force Majeure) as another
young, provocative, Swedish filmmaker of the finest order.
CPH:DOX is an annual documentary film festival held

in Copenhagen, Denmark. The festival screens the best
of world documentaries, as well as Scandinavian favouries. This year the festival beat last years audience numbers, with 80,000 attending and 4,000 watching online.
87
Reviews: Best of 2014
The Department Q Films

The keeper of lost causes
88
the keeper of lost causes
reviews
kvinden i buret
n i ko l a j l i e k a a s | fa r e s fa r e s | d i r : m i k k e l N r g a a r d | 9 7 m i n s c r i m e / t h r i l l e r
words: kirsti jungklaus-kuszmider

The Nordic Noir genre has been on the map for a good number
of years now, but the fact of the matter, which is now all too
easy to forget, is that it wormed its way in to our hearts first and
foremost via the literary genre film and television came later.
Adapted from the best-selling novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen,
the recent film, The Keeper of Lost Causes is another piece
of Nordic Noir to come to our screens from literature. The
film is the first of the 3-part Department Q series, which
focuses on a generically typical yet still fresh Copenhagen
detective by the name of Carl Mrck. It would be easy to just
rattle off what merits the film did or did not have, but any
book to film adaptation deserves to be considered within its
context, and The Keeper of Lost Causes is no exception.
Nordic Noir is a genre that has a reputation for being of a
high standard. Its serious. No fluff. No silly games. And fortunately, The Keeper of Lost Causes manages to maintain
this tradition despite the fact that book to film adaptations are
frequently below par. (For example, the adaptation of The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could only dream of matching
the intensity of the original text. But thats another story.)
This story goes as per the following: Police detective Carl
Mrck, played by Scandinavian crime regular Nikolaj Lie
Kaas, has been taken out of the homicide department after a tragic incident on the job. He is to run a newly created department for unsolved crimes where the only
thing hes expected to solve is a bit of paperwork. Mrck
is naturally disappointed to be pushed in to a seemingly
slow retirement, but then along comes his new assistant
Asssad (Fares Fares), who sees a position in this new department as a step up in the right direction. Somewhat reluctantly encouraged, Mrck takes up the case of Merete
Lynggaard (Sonja Richter), a politician who vanished off
a ferry boat 5 years earlier while travelling with her mentally disabled younger brother, Uffe. Errors in the initial case start to surface, and it isnt long before the grim
even visceral details unfold as the film shifts back
and forth between the past and the present in a race to get
to the bottom of what happened to Merete Lynggaard.
As a whole, The Keeper of Lost Causes is a solid, if at times

safe adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsens first novel. Adapted for
the screen by veteran writer Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair,
The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo) the narrative remained as
true to the text as it possibly could have within the constraints
of the average 90-minute film. Sure, there were details missing that could have made the film richer, and at times the story
felt rather straightforward. But neither detracted from what
was still an entertaining 97 minutes of movie night. And given that the book on which it was based is a lengthy 490 pages,
one has to admit that Nikolaj Arcel did a commendable job
giving the film a concrete beginning, middle and end. Not to
mention the fact that he maintained the most essential aspect
of the story: the unlikely relationship between Mrck and his
partner Assad. Without which, the film would have failed.
Other worthy mentions are Mikkel Nrgaards direction, which
captured the customary bleak atmosphere to a tee, and the solid
acting performances of the entire cast, but most notably that
of Sonja Richter, who played the ill-fated Merete Lynggaard.
Overall, The Keeper of Lost Causes proved a decent start
to the Department Q series. Like most adaptations, it gave
the impression there was more to come although the film
can safely stand on its own it will naturally be even better when considered a part to a greater whole. The second
installment, The Absent One, will likely be released in the
UK come January. Chances are, it will be worth a viewing.
The Keeper of Lost Causes will be released on DVD in the coming months. Details
will be posted on Cinema Scandinavia
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the absent one

Fasandrberne
n i ko l a j l i e k a a s | fa r e s fa r e s | D I R : M i k a e l N r g a a r d | 1 9 9 m i n s c r i m e / t h r i l l e r
words: Frederick Bov

Rarely in the history of Danish cinema has there been a safer
bet than the film-series Zentropa is currently making on Jussi
Adler-Olsens books about Department Q. The books about
the investigative squad consisting of Carl Mrck, Assad and
their assistant Rose has sold over 1.2 million books in Denmark, and 6 million in the rest of the world. With actors like
Nikolaj Lie Kaas, and Swede Fares Fares playing the central
detectives, as well as Sonja Richter and Pilou Asbk playing
victims and murderers in the two films, the series doesnt lack
star-power. And then there is director Mikkel Nrgrd, who
with these two films as well as his debut comedy Klovn has
made three of the four biggest box-office openings in Danish
history. It should have come as no surprise when The Absent
One broke box office records at its opening in October. And
really, it should only come as a slightly bigger surprise that the
film is as enjoyable, exciting, and just all around good as it is.
The slight surprise at the quality of the film comes from the
fact that an adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsens books could
quite well have gone quite wrong. I will freely admit that
Ive only managed to make it through a combined 50 pages
of his crime series, but already from that small sampling it
was clear that Mikkel Nrgrd made some very smart adaptational choices. Adler-Olsen is not very good at language,
but the film lets us learn about the characters through the way
that they act and look, rather than what they say. And AdlerOlsens crime plots arent really the main draw either. I have
yet to meet anybody who didnt figure out the story behind
the central kidnapping in The Keeper of Lost Causes way
earlier than the detectives did, and in The Absent One, the
film just comes right out and states the identity of the killers
pretty much from the beginning. What the books seem to
have, and what the films wisely focus on, is a tremendous
sense of mood. The Absent One takes us from the highest
highs of society to the lowest lows. From the modernistic
90
luxury homes north of Copenhagen to the homeless individuals dwelling in the rundown areas in the center. Nrgrd contrasts these two spheres brilliantly. All the rich bad guys have
homes or offices with amazing views over water, they are
masters and controllers of the world. The poor people live in
cramped and claustrophobic areas, that doesnt oversee anything. If this sounds like a simplistic film where rich=bad,
then thats kind of true. The series is about detectives solving
old and dormant cases,but really, as with so much Nordic
Crime Fiction, its about looking at the sins and crimes of
Danish society. In the first film, it was a Social Democrat
whose past came back to haunt her. This time, its entitled
rich psychopaths ruining everything around them. Pilou
Asbk is masterful as Ditlev Pramm, the embodiment of careless capitalism, with hipster glasses and
carefully groomed facial hair, attacking, using and threatening everybody to get his way. David Dencik has the
less impressive role as Ulrik Dybbl, the perverted aristocrat with the big country mansion. They are types, but
they are well-made types This is not a particularly subtle
film. We do not get a sense of the brokenness of detective.
Mrck from Lie Kaas performance as much as from the
bandages and bloodshot red eyes he acquires from the film.
And we understand the depravity of the bad guys from how
they present themselves. The image of the upper-class killers dressed entirely in black clothes and a white hoods owes
quite a lot as an image to film-monsters like Alex from A
Clockwork Orange or Peter and Paul from Hanekes Funny Games, but its an effective creation that remains scary
throughout the whole film. And as the pieces of the crime
plot falls into place, the film changes into more of a horror film, the scenography becomes fully theatrical, and
characters always seems able to turn up at the most inopportune moment without explanation. That does not detract from the film, though. It only makes it more effective.
reviews
speed
walking
kapgang
pilou asbk | sidse babett knudsen |

dir: niels arden oplev | 108 mins Drama
words: taylor sinople
speed walking
Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)

returns to Denmark after working in the United States for several years with this uncharacteristically
tender
coming
of
age
comedy.
Over the course of a few, rough weeks, fourteen-yearold Martin (Villads Bye) navigates a fluid, burgeoning sexuality, processes grief after the sudden death of his
mother, and competes in a speed walking competition.
The year is 1976 in this Jutland-set story of a boy adapting to his countrys rapid transition to a more liberal era.
Writers of coming-of-age films sometimes forget (or maybe
choose to ignore) that growing up can be a pretty screwedup experience. Sure, young hearts get broken over first
loves all the time in the movies, but theres a wild sort of
destructiveness to childhood thats not always captured onscreen. The ideals and pitfalls of the adult world are sometimes imposed on adolescents before theyre ready for it.
Oplev decided to adapt this story for the screen before
Morten Kirk Forest even finished his hugely popular autobiographical novel of the same name. Martins story of
coping and celebrating is a standout portrayal of childhood
thats full of humor and yet never turns away from its darker
moments. Martin gets himself into some seedy situations,
and explores his sexuality with both his girlfriend (Kraka

Donslund Nielsen) and best friend (Frederik Winther Rasmussen). Speed Walking is an effort that proves confronting realities of childhood is the best way to understand it.
Lead actor Villads Bye gives a bold, first-time performance as Martin and dares to hit every note Oplev asks
of him. The process of grieving his mothers death takes
him through denial, anger, and hysterics, and each step
rings true. Bye is flanked by his older brother who struggles to move past the denial phase, and his father, who
is at a total loss for how to raise a family on his own.
Oplev shot the film in eight and a half weeks on a four million dollar budget and clearly took great delight in designing a film that takes place in the 70s. The American rock
soundtrack includes hits like The Knacks My Sharona,
making this portrait of self-discovery during an imperfect
childhood a perfect blend of Dazed and Confused and The
Perks of Being a Wallflower. The only lingering question is
what the speed walking tie-in is all about, to which Oplev remarks, Its kind of a stupid sportbut it was popular at the
time. Speed Walking is a consistently hilarious, all-around
worthwhile effort a real highlight of Danish cinema in 2014.
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of horses and men

hross ross
i n g va r e g g e r t s i g u r s s o n | c h a r l o t t e b v i n g | d i r : b e n e d i k t e r l i n g s s o n | 8 1 m i n s c o m e dy / d r a m a taylor sinople
An Icelandic farming community is the center of

a series of overlapping vignettes that explore relationships between humans and horses in Of Horses and Men. And its not as weird as it sounds.
Horses today function as both a utility and a pet to us,
but writer-director Benedikt Erlingsson hopes you may
just see them as equals by the end of the film. From the
proud gait of a show horse to a look of attraction lust,
even between stallion and mare, Erlingsson captures
remarkable humanistic performances from the horses featured on-screen. We recognize ourselves in them.
Whether this film does much for you or not will depend on how much youre willing to put into analyzing
the film. For example, I was struck by how the horses allow themselves to be boxed in by a simple rope stretched
around posts to form a pen. They could easily march
straight through the imaginary barrier, but they dont. Do
we do this, too? What imaginary borders do we, as humans, allow to control and restrict us? This moment of
clarity was powerful, but wasnt duplicated as often as Id have liked in the film. For those worried
that the concept may be a bit heavy-handed, Of Horses and Men could actually stand for more cleverness.
The first of six stories featured here is an outstanding short
film in its own right it draws lines between man and
horse that I felt excited to explore but the rest that follows comes up under-whelming as Erlingsson fails to again
reach that height of storytelling. Still, a small idea gets a
small movie, and at only 80 minutes this is a bite-sized eyeopener that will shift your world-view in its own slight way.
how to stop a
wedding
hur man stoppar ett brllop

cleo paraskevopoulou
92
No, How To Stop A Wedding is not a Swedish version of

Julia Robertss on-screen adventures back in 1997, when she
was desperately trying to ruin her best friends engagement to
someone else. Director Drazen Kuljanins debut feature film
is a 72-minutes long encounter, captured solely during the
five-hour train ride between Malm and Stockholm, Sweden.
Philip (Christian Ehrnstn) and Amanda (Lina Sundn) are
two strangers who happen to be travelling in the same compartment, heading to the same wedding, one that none of them
is particularly happy about. She is carrying a book about revenge while his is about time-travel. It would be quite accurate
to say that, as it turns out, they have both chosen a story that
sounds like their own. He is the romantic, the hopeful dreamer. He is trapped in a fairy-tale that he would like to go back
to and which he can only imagine ending happily, because he
is that kind of guy. She is tense, bitter, angry and sad. Is it
possible to even out the angles in such a situation of opposites
and do those two have enough in common to make it happen?
Despite being shot in a limited space and with visual variety in setting coming almost entirely from the changing view of the speeding train, the film refuses to become
flat or monotonous. Grounding its narrative and cinematic
strength on interesting and brilliantly paced dialogue, as
well as on wise adaptation of camera movement, it has no
need of landscape shots or catchy songs to appeal to the
viewer. A lot of close-ups record and enhance the emotional
curve of the characters while the score fits very well, working supportively yet quite efficiently as the story unfolds.
To cut a long story short, How to stop a wedding is the result of a challenging filming process, an indie film not always technically perfect but definitely engaging from start
to end. The cast gives a solid and subtle performance, especially Sundn with whom the director has also worked in his
short film 2038. Regarding to the plot, you might have come
across similar stories before, but this is still worth watching for it resembles a photographic realization of thoughts.
It compels one to see Philip and Amanda not just as a couple
of people who interact and communicate, but mostly as mirrors who provided each other the surfaces on which to reflect
and study their inner selves. Irrespective of what happens
next, those five hours on the train have been a reminder that
living facing the past, can be as annoying as travelling on a
seat that faces backwards. Unless you pre-book one thats
comfortable, you will most likely embark on a journey
throughout which you will be feeling nauseous and grumpy.
reviews
we are the best!
we are the best!

Vi r bst!
m i r a b a r k h a m m a r | m i r a g r o s i n | D i r : l u k a s m o o dys s o n |
102 mins Drama/music
zacK miller
We Are The Best! opens with a phone conversation so recognizable that it could just as easily have been a collective
audience daydream, recalling teenage days spent locked in
our rooms, complaining on the phone to our friends about
how everyone elses life is cooler than ours. It sets a tone that
follows through the next hour and a half, reminding us of our
younger selves so that the excess weight of forced nostalgia
can be dropped as we immediately connect with the characters.
Shot with a documentary feel, the film is a loosely plotted
slice of life focused on three pre-teen girls. Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) are best friends who decide on a whim, and to spite the older boys who tease them
to start a punk band. The fact that neither of them plays
an instrument is only ever a secondary concern to them, but
when they see Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) playing classical guitar in a school talent show, they invite her to join their ranks.
From there, a host of familiar events play out as the girls
goof off in school, go to their first party, and fight over boys.
If the last sentence makes the film sound trite or formulaic,
its only because this is such a keen rehashing of the pubescent comedies and dramas weve come to know. Unlike
so many before him, Moodysson has no interest in pushing
these girls towards some grand climactic event, like the crest
of a wave that they can ride into the next phase of their adolescence. The third act hook a Christmas concert at a community centre in a neighbouring town gleefully subverts
any notion of coming-of-age-ness as the girls are booed off
stage, still looking like theyre having the time of their lives.
The spirit of the film lives in the understanding that growing up doesnt happen in one spotlighted scene, but rather a
little at a time, and that sometimes having a blast with your
friends is just as memorable as any self-important life lesson.
Substantial praise is due to the three leads, all making their
acting debut. In excellent performances that are mature beyond their young years, the girls are charmingly awkward
and unprecedentedly believable often it feels like they
arent even acting, a feat that is duly impressive for a child
performer. The best of the three is Mira Grosin, who is the
heart of the film just as Klara is to the band. Grosin is as
earnest as Klara is fickle; she almost deadpans her lines
with a hilarious and wide-eyed conviction, which is made
even funnier by her constant willingness to drop her principles and change the rules whenever they no longer suit
her. What all three convey best, though, is the struggle
between individuality and embracing a lifestyle; theyre
stuck in the youthful limbo of not yet having found themselves, but theyre not afraid to keep searching until they do.
Based on a graphic novel by Coco Moodysson, wife of
director Lukas, We Are The Best! is meant to be somewhat autobiographical. Herein lies the films greatest strength: she isnt telling just her own story. This is a
film for musicians; for outcasts; for children of the 80s;
for anyone who has ever been embarrassed by their parents or a bad haircut. In short, this is a film for everyone.
93
concrete night
concrete night
betoniy
johannes brotherus | jari virman | Dir: pirjo honkasalo |

96mins Drama
valeriya baeva
A teenage boy Simo (Johannes Brotherus) lives with his
mother (Anneli Karppinen) and brother Ilkka (Jari Virman)
in one of the countless flats of Helsinkis urban buildings.
In the beginning of the film he has a surreal nightmare of a
dark and gloomy existence, but when he wakes up nothing
really change: his brother is going to the prison, mother is
living the illusions of the past she could have, and Simo is
just being lost in the reality he is in. A brief encounter with
a stranger evokes the unexpected violence in Simo, literally
turning his life into a nightmare he was dreaming about.
Pirjo Honkasalos new fiction film is the adaptation of a
novel by Pirkko Saisio, which was published in 1981. The
story about a boy, who is struggling to adapt to a surrounding reality for a certain reason became topical nowadays. Set
in a modern landscape of Helsinki, with minimum dialogues
and maximum of a cameramans virtuosity this black and
white film without any doubts looks on-mark for the film
festivals and 87th Academy Award, which it was nominated
as an entry from Finland for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Concrete Night is the night, when Ilkka will tell his
younger nave brother the story about scorpions that will
be only survivors after radioactive fallout. Simo, with his
bright eyes wide open to the world (even though this world
is not that appealing) believes every word his brother says,
94
and probably just because he has the desire to love and to

be loved back, not because he really believes in the apocalypse, at least not so soon, when he just enjoys everyday
life around him. The symbols of scorpions that are coming to the vanished from humanity planet are the ones that
become crucial in the end of the film, when Simo realises
that his soul now can be easily reached by the threatening scorpions, because he betrayed the moral values,
the human nature he was trying to preserve in himself.
Sometimes, it may look like the film is trying too hard to
be aesthetically perfect with all these noir looking streets
of Helsinki, where even mud looks appealing to lie in it,
countless reflections in the mirrors and water, and overall beautiful Mise en scenes, where instead of rats prowling in search of food at a night, we see a pretty little
rabbit. But this can be explained by the directors background, which made her style to be so accurately adjusted to the direction of filmmaking she picked for herself.
Honakasalos previous works were mainly devoted to documentary, where she became known for her poetic style.
Her The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004) became one of
the true gems of Venice festival in 2004, where the director
was telling a story about young people whose life became
tragically connected with Chechnya War. In that film you
can see the awareness of the director towards youths problems. In her fiction film she again sees the potential threat
world poses to the young generation that was actual both
in 1981 when the novel came out, and on the present-day.
Violence that Simo experiences is what was seeded in him
before he realised it, because of the dissociation of the true
values, the impossibility to be raised in a normal family.
Who are these scorpions that were going to come? Maybe
the real tragedy of the story is that Simo was among them?
And if so, then even the army of cute rabbits will not help.
reviews
copenhagen
copenhagen
gethin anthony | frederikke dahl hansen | DIR: Mark raso |

98mins action/romance
cleo paraskevopoulou
I have to admit that I had high expectations of Mark Rasos
Copenhagen, probably even too high, long before the film
actually came out. This was mostly due to an exceptional
trailer; a brilliantly edited, two minutes long video, set to
a haunting original song by the Danish band Stoffer og
maskinen. I would easily name it one of the best trailers I
have seen in quite some time. Yes, when I got to watch the
full feature, I did feel slightly disappointed by certain parts.
I may have expected it to be more suspenseful, with less of
an attempt to be funny and a touch closer to the art-house
side. Though regarding the latter, I cant say it ever made any
promises that it had to keep. Copenhagen might have failed
to confirm those premature assumptions of mine, but other
than that, it only caught me by surprise and turned out to be
among the most engaging and worth watching movies of 2014.
The film begins with an indirect introduction to one of the
main characters, William (Gethin Anthony), who has traveled from the U.S. to Denmark, with a letter he has to deliver to his Danish grandfather, as soon as he finds him. A
bit shallow and a little mad at everything, William is lost,
literally as he is metaphorically, until he runs into Effy
(Frederikke Dahl Hansen), a local girl who will help him
on his way to find his roots. The story takes place mainly in
the streets of beautiful and colorful Copenhagen, which is
photographed as bright and lively but also as soothing and
not too crowded. As he learns more about his family, he realizes that the distance between them and himself is even
greater than he had imagined. The closer he gets to his past,
the more he moves away from it, while he becomes increasingly attached to Effy, who in the meantime has fallen in
love with him. Can he fall for a girl who is half his age?
That question floats in the air between them, as it circles
around the mind of the viewer throughout the movie, waiting to be answered. Twenty-year-old Frederikke Dahl Hansen gives an extraordinary performance and Gethin Anthony
is almost as good. Solid and rich but never over-the-top,
this is the kind of acting you would expect to see in Scandinavian cinema, even though the filming style is still pretty
much American. The chemistry between them is of the kind
one rarely comes across on screen, resulting in a sexual and
emotional tension so strong and realistic that it becomes the
center of attention, often overshadowing Williams personal
journey. At that point, one starts wondering if finding out
where you come from was meant to be the main theme of
the story or if, in fact, it is all about connecting with someone and living in the present, finally feeling that you belong.
That said, it comes as no surprise that when Effy sings part
of the main soundtrack with William watching her, one
can almost guess the meaning of the lyrics, without knowing Danish. It is the same feeling you will get from their
interaction during the whole film; an awkward, unsettling
but at the same time exciting fact, that they silently keep
repeating to each other: You and I have melted into one.
Overall, there were some clichs that the film could do
without and also some shaky moments as far as both
style and pacing are concerned. However, that is to be
expected from a debut feature film and Copenhagen
surely is a promising start for Mark Raso, who seems
to have approached the subject of identity, human connection and relationships skillfully and with sensitivity.
95
the 100 year old man
the 100 year old

man
Hundraringen som klev ut genom fnstret och

frsvann
Maximilien Luc Proctor
The film starts with a whimper, followed closely by a
bang. So is our introduction to Allan Karlsson, a Swedish
man preparing to turn one-hundred years old, who blows
up a fox with dynamite for killing his cat. We soon learn
of his love of explosives. He is promptly moved to a retirement home and responds by climbing out the window on
his birthday. Allan is nowhere to be found and so begin
his adventures, taking the first train out of town and unwittingly involving himself in financial gangster affairs.
As he hits the road, Allan begins to relate his life story,
which weaves in and out of major historical events of the
20th century while his narration frequently provides an
ironic counterpoint to the visual depictions of these events.
Not long after discovering his love of explosives from a
fairly young age, Allan turns out to be infertile. This infertility produces in him a strongly-hinted at but never directlyaddressed sexual tension which finds relief in this love of
explosives. This also results in Allans strong death-drive.
He is a big risk taker and proves to have come closer to
death far more often than he even knows. Through it all, he
maintains a relatively indifferent disposition to massively
life-altering events, always searching for new solutions to
move on rather than merely giving up even when hes
trapped in the gulag with Albert Einsteins fictional brother.
96
The films direction and cinematography prove more than

capable throughout. The 2.39:1 aspect ratio is occasionally
put to exceptionally good use as director of photography
Gran Hallberg and director Felix Herngren continuously
fill the frame with historical figures, luscious interiors, stark
landscapes, and an elephant. A comedy, a road movie, a historical drama, a fictional biopic The Hundred-Year-Old
Man has a bit of everything. The characters both real
and invented are always colorful and interesting. They
feel like real people with real lives which have merely been
briefly interrupted for the duration of the film. Even characters without an explicit back story feel full and well-acted.
The Hundred-Year-Old Man plays out like a Swedish
version of Forrest Gump, in the ways Allan unknowingly
bumbles through major historical events like solving the
problem in the equation for the atom bomb but unlike Forrest Gump, everything is contextualized on a global rather
than national stage. The wider context and darker humor are
somewhat reminiscent of such films from the Western Balkans as Emir Kusturicas When Father was Away on Business as well as the political bat-shit zaniness of his later
film Underground. The film also shares a strong cynicism
with such movies, in turns similar to the dark humor of the Coen brothers work, yet The HundredYear-Old Man is arguably far more humanistic
than anything in the Coens filmography. The
centenarian, as he is so lovingly dubbed, possesses a childlike naivety which conveys the films overall stance toward
human violence and conflict: it is silly, and its a waste, but
its a part of life. Why anyone should ever put so much effort into conflict with other human beings instead of setting differences aside is seemingly beyond Allans realm of
comprehension. Always engaging without losing its daring
sense of self-assuredness to investigate dark territories, The
Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is a small triumph and a lot of fun.
paris of the north

Pars Norursins
helgi bjrnsson | nanna kristn magnsdttir | DIR: hafst e i n n g u n n a r s i g u r a a o n | 9 8 m i n s c o m e dy
taylor sinople
Some audiences may have gotten a taste of director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurssons work without realizing it. Either
Way, Sigurssons first film, was remade by David Gordon
Green in 2013 as Prince Avalanche. Like that film, Paris of the North is a small, universal story about relationships between men with opposing personalities. But unlike
that film, Paris of the North lacks any identifying quirks
that would allow its barely-there plot to hold your focus.
After a bad break-up, Hugi (Bjrn Thors) is keeping things
together, but just barely. He teaches young students in his tiny
Icelandic town by day and attends three-person AA meetings
by night. All thats shaken up by a visit from his alcoholic father (Helgi Bjrnsson, also seen this year in Of Horses and
Men) an arrangement Hugi agrees upon in order to stand
up to his father and declare his independence. But in between
his fathers incessant flirting with the locals and drinking pallets of beer, hes not sure if the message will ever get through.
In addition to the central father-son pairing, Sigursson explores the ways that Hugi has become both a father and a son
to other residents in his village. Huldar Breifjr wrote the
script, and handles the characters with a heavy helping of
subtlety. At first, this modesty is a pleasant relief. Hugis fathers reputation precedes him, so when he finally arrives its
a nice surprise to find he isnt a larger-than-life drunken character, but one struggling with realistic, undeniable flaws.
As the film goes on, though, the modesty and subtlety becomes a bit much. This is a 98-minute film that feels much
longer. Theres always some sense of satisfaction in absorbing a very human story, but a bit more comedy wouldnt
have hurt. Despite the upbeat rock music (composed by Icelandic artist Prins Polo) and a few attempts at approaching
comedic relief, Paris of the North is, mostly, even-toned
and pleasant. Hugi is a character struggling with boredom
in a town too small to have fun in, and he passes those banal frustrations on to us. For a lead character, hes easy to
watch but tough to connect to. Sigursson meandered in
Either Way and it worked because it reflected the characters lives as lone highway repairmen, but here a tighter dra-
reviews
matic through-line feels necessary and is disappointingly
absent. Despite using a different writer, it feels like Sigursson attempted to play it safe by making a very similar
film, but the material is begging for a more lively treatment.
There are a few gears working well the shots that highlight
Icelands natural beauty; Haki Lorenzens performance as
young Albert, a boy that looks up to Hugi but without much to
grab on to or love about Paris of the North or its characters, its
ultimately a slice-of-life dramedy too slight for its own good.
the salvation
m a d s m i k k e l s e n | e va g r e e n | d i r : k r i s t i a n l e v r i n g | 9 2
mins drama/western
taylor sinople
With genre film, sometimes to deliver on the tropes is
enough. The Salvation and its revenge-seeking-cowboy tale may not be revolutionary, but with a confident
mix of convention and a clever use of budget, its a rare
Western-throwback that understands, beyond shootouts and horse chases, the dramatic roots of its elders.
Its 1871 in the Wild West, and powerful forces are manipulating the citizens of the countryside in hopes of being the first to profit from the impending oil boom. When
Jon (Mads Mikkelsen) exacts revenge on his wifes
killer, he unknowingly murders the brother of a notorious, psychopathic outlaw (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
Danish director Kristian Levring gives Jon a small backstory
to explain Mikkelsens European heritage, but is primarily
interested in creating a genuine American Western. Like
Lars Von Trier, Levring has strayed almost completely from
his Dogme 95 days when he was operating under the pretense that realism and practicality was the key to transcendent cinema. The Salvation isnt much for realism, and its
many moments of bloodshed are anything but practical, but
there have been a pitifully small number of truly effective
Westerns in past years and this happens to be one of them.
Levring and co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen (Adams
Apples) favor stealth combat over wide-screen shoot-outs
and saloon-set brawls. As Jon is just one man taking on an
outlaws gang in this intense kill-or-be-killed scenario, he
picks them off one by one in the night rather than facing the
97
the salvation
than facing the group head-on. Watching Jon a peaceful settler, not a full-fledged cowboy set traps and
decoys for the outlaws to fall into is fun and brutal.
Mikkelsen is, within the limitations of his archetypal character, outstanding a revelation as an action hero and a
solid competitor to replace Liam Neeson should he ever
stop making Taken films. The Danish supporting cast is
similarly pitch perfect, but its the American players that
fall flat. Morgan, who plays the gang leader hunting Jon
down, is committed but cant fully hide how unbelievable
the character is on paper. Hes betrayed by the script and not
given the shape to come to life as a genuine human, which,
as the primary antagonist, does some damage to the films
central conflict. Wooden roles in Westerns is one trope we
can go ahead and squash, but in step with tradition, Levring
is content to let the outlaws be outlaws; the hero the hero.
In terms of the role of women in this notoriously malefocused genre, well, the most prominent woman (played
by Eva Green) is literally a mute having had her tongue
cut out by Indians. This self-aware restriction is a nice
touch considering Green ends up developing one
of the more interesting characters in the film.
The Salvation gets the essential, iconic look mostly deadon. The train-track-roaring, horse-and-buggy-rumbling
opening scene impresses with wind-blown characters donning clanking revolvers and dusty cowhide jackets. The cos-
98
tumes, sets, and sound design all immerse you in the world
and make great use of surround sound speaker systems.
Theres also an excellent piece of set design found in the
burned-out ghost town that plays host to the final third of
the film. Blackened shells of houses surround a saloon the
only surviving building and the headquarters of the outlaws.
Cinematographer Jens Schlosser offers many nods to the
genres greatest tropes (even introducing the antagonist
with a close-up of his boots slamming into the dirt from
atop a horse), but he also contributes to the films one egregious lapse in visual quality. After a beautiful dusk-lit sequence, night falls and everything goes wonky. This may be
the worst lit nighttime scene that Ive ever seen in a professional production. The color grading is so heavy that
it crushes the blacks and distorts the colors to a deep, unnatural blue. The on-set lighting is also incredibly direct
practically a spotlight resulting in the moon casting razor-sharp shadows on the ground. The scene runs
for under five minutes, but its so significant even the casual moviegoer with an untrained eye will likely notice it.
In Schlossers better moments, he uses massive crane
shots to highlight the vistas of the American Southwest,
and adds a sense of scale to this nifty Danish-American fusion project. Mikkelsen may be lacking an iconic
line of dialogue to enable the film to reach cult-hit levels
in the United States, but The Salvation is a drama-minded Western that tells a well-worn story in artful ways.
something must
break
Nnting mste g snder
s a g a b e c k e r | i g gy m a l m b o r g | d i r : e s t e r m a r t i n b e r g s m a r k
| 81 mins drama/romance
taylor sinople
Something Must Break lifts its title from the Joy Division song of the same name and re-purposes the duality Ian Curtis was pondering before his death in 1980,
Two ways to choose / Which way to go / Had thoughts
for one / Designs for both. Early on in the film, Sebastian (Saga Becker) promises, I will soon disappear.
With long, braided hair, a petite frame, and careful use of
make-up, Sebastian isnt just looking to pass for Ellie
his internal female identity hes looking to become her.
Transgender writer-director Ester Martin Bergsmark had
previously only worked in documentaries (She Male
Snails) but comes onto the narrative scene with a loud, dysphoric bang. Bergsmark shot Something Must Break
digitally on a Canon 7D, but youd swear it were 16mm. A
dirty, rough image captured with a mostly handheld camera causes some real unease when matched against the desaturated, urban Swedish setting and the excellent sound
design that hones in on and amplifies room tones. Lyrical
sequences filled with beautiful, dark images punctuate story
segments. Bergsmark seems to be motivated by music video aesthetics and brings in a dancey electronic soundtrack.
Sebastian, androgynous in appearance, wanders the city and
is drawn towards darkness and pain. Piss in my mouth if
itll make you love me. Theres a lot of tension to Sebastians pursuing of men; it canget dangerous when who you
are may be someone others reject or even hate. Andreas
(Iggy Malmborg), a leather jacket donning punk, interrupts a violent altercation and helps Sebastian escape and
the two begin seeing each other. Im not gay, Andreas
declares. Im not either, Sebastian/Ellie says. Because
Sebastian is acting as Ellie, their relationship isnt much
different than a heterosexual one other than Andreass wavering comfort with the male body. Together, they push
their sex to extremes slapping and cutting each other
and crawl the city with the freeing wind of rebellious youth.
reviews
40 minutes in, we become so immersed in this alternative

world that when Sebastian/Ellie runs into some of Andreass
friends who live a more traditional lifestyle we ourselves
feel out of place among them. Becker, as a non-professional actor, is more vulnerable on-screen than a trained actor
playing a role could possibly achieve. His feminine performance is confusing, and stretches go by where we forget this is a two-man relationship, only to be reminded by
graphic sequences that depict Sebastian/ Ellie engaging in
random sex, usually with more than one man. Two such
sequences are disturbing in their implications of abuse but
stunningly photographed in extreme slow motion. Its this
alternation and meshing of ugliness and beauty that makes
Something Must Break so hard to tear your eyes from.
Andreas summarizes the tone in a single, unforgettable
line, Youre so beautiful it makes me want to throw up.
Chris Jones, reviewing Joy Divisions album Still for
BBC Music, writes, All that we have left is the sepulchral
voice, the snatches of Ballardian existentialism and the
eerie electronic undertow. Its more than enough for most
people. But beginners would be wise to start with their two
proper studio albums. Something Must Break, too, is a
bit alienating in its nudity and depictions of intercourse,
but beyond that is an unflinching, screwed-up, wholly involving story from a director who is working towards
achieving the visual confidence of early Aronofsky. Bergsmark may appear to have an over-reliance on image, but
theres a suitable irony to capturing a character that many
look away from with a style that screams, Look at me!
force majeure
turist
j o h a n n e s k u h n k e | l i s a l o v e n ko n g s l i | d i r : R u b e n s t l u n d |
1 1 8 m i n s c o m e dy / d r a m a
taylor sinople
A Swedish familys vacation to a ski resort in disrupted by an avalanche that incites instability between husband and wife. This genre-puzzler that alternates laughs with an impending sense of doom is a
festival favourite from Cannes and Swedens entry to the
foreign language competition at the 87th Academy Awards.
99
Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) and Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) capture the marital fight that goes unspoken and explore the frustrating walls that pop up between stubborn people with opposing points of view. This one,
frightening event unpacks a mess of questions and
doubts between the couple when they realize theyve
experienced two different versions of the same event.
Writer-director Ruben stlund (Play, Involuntary) explores
gender roles and expectations, but utilizes the sharp, exciting aesthetic of a thriller. Beautiful, fluid shots are captured
with the camera on skis, and the looming presence of the
hotel and ominous orchestral score leaves you wondering if
this domestic drama may end with an axe through a door. A
family friend (played by Kristofer Hivju, In Order of Disappearance) shows up to help mediate, to hilarious results.
stlund uses the staging of the actors to draw unexpected
laughs, like when Tomas and Ebba, in the middle of a heated argument, are boxed into a tiny elevator with a stranger.
The avalanches arrival one of the most talked about moments at Cannes this year immediately became one of my favorite shots of the year.
What a stunning, huge effect in a relatively small film.
So did you see Force Majeure? was the most frequent
question Ive been asked by other visitors of the Chicago International Film Festival. stlunds film is raising questions
on masculinity and moral responsibility that audiences cant
stop arguing about a wonderful bright spot for anyone disillusioned by binge-and-forget TV culture. stlund is committed to our entertainment and delivers on every level providing comedy and drama that actively invites the audience to
contribute their point of view. Its both slickly presented and
deeply considered, and a shoe-in for my best of the fest list.
aerobics
v i c t o r v o n s c h i r a c h | m a r i n a n ys t r m | D I R : A n d e r s R u n e |
77mins Drama
emma robinson
Aerobics: A Love Story, by award-winning filmmaker Anders Rune, is an odd story tackling serious themes of mental
illness, while presenting it in an indie and distinctively Scandinavian style that makes it unique from others of similar
plots. The story, set in the suburbs of Stockholm, follows Maria, a mentally challenged woman who is living with her sister, Helen, and Janne, a lovable oaf who is desperate to have
a show on television. The characters are introduced in a way
that makes them flawed but instantly likeable. We see Helen
and Marias close connection from the very first scene, and
Jannes passion and endearment from his television audition.
As the title suggests, the main driving story in this film is
love. In particular, through Maria and Janne. The film addresses controversial topics surrounding mental illness and
ones ability to make their own decisions in such a state. Maria
runs away from Helen to be with Janne, and that only causes
controversy. The love between these two characters is lost to
politics and laws. Despite this, Janne is able to recruit Maria
to help him with a pitch for a television show about aerobics.
The film follows indie filmmaking styles, with a definite
Nordic flair. There is minimal dialogue, and the editing is
reminiscent of Lars von Triers best works. While the theme
of the story is not unique, it is told in a realistic, simple
and fresh way that draws you in. All of the characters are
believable, and you find yourself glued to the screen right
from the opening scene. The final scene of the film is a reminder of Little Miss Sunshine: odd, bizarre, yet entertaining and well achieving of putting a smile on your face.
Overall, Aerobics: A Love Story is an engaging and exciting Swedish indie film that not only entertains you from start
to finish, but also educates and discusses important mental
illness topics that arent talked about in mainstream media. The film is enhanced by its Scandinavian realism, and
is definitely worth viewing. For Anders Runes first film, it
is an indie masterpiece and shows a very promising career.
The film won Best International Film at the Orlando Urban Film Festival, and has recently had
its premiere at the New York Indie Film Festival
.
100
reviews
dawn
dawn
morgenrde
torstein bjrklund | ingar helge gimle | dir: anders elsrud

h u lt g r e e n | 7 0 m i n s Fa n ta sy / s c i f i
Emma Robinson
Norwegian film has come a long way. Ever since the silent
era, it has regularly been compared with the cinema of neighbouring countries Sweden and Denmark, and usually came
up short. The craftsmanship behind filmmaking appeared
to be neglected by too many filmmakers, and in the 1980s
hit rock bottom when a film festival in Skien was declared
a total failure and a seminar panel at the event dismissed
Norwegian filmmaking. The early 1990s witnessed films of
such low quality that NRK produced a documentary called
Why is Norwegian Cinema so Bad? in an attempt to mock
the genre films of Norway. This is not the case anymore.
The Norwegian cinema of the past two decades has grown
into a respectable, artistic, and innovative cinema. Films
such as Insomnia (1997), Headhunters (2011), Kon-Tiki
(2012), Trollhunter (2010) and In Order of Disappearance (2014) have had both domestic and international success, and have shown that Norwegian cinema is on the rise.
Dawn follows in this trend of high quality and artistic
Norwegian cinema. Soon to be released, the film is off to
a promising start after being selected for the Bergen International Film Festival and the Reykjavik International Film
Festival. This is the first feature film to come from Anders
Elsrud Hultgreen, and he rejects the beautiful fjords and
snow-capped mountains we have come to admire in Norway for a desolate, broken and isolated world. Tense, ritualistic, and gritty, Dawn is a science fiction film set years
after the global fall, where water is sparse and polluted.
The story is minimal. We follow two survivors of the

apocalypse who eye each other with suspicion as they
journey through their broken and empty world. One of
them, known as Rahab (Torstein Bjrklund) has been undertaking ritualistic behaviours, and the other, Set (Ingar
Helge Gimle) is a curious onlooker. After Rahab promises a clean source of water, the two journey together in
hopes of coming across the resource free of pollution. The
story and pacing in itself is similar to the work of Nicholas Winding Refn, in the best way possible. The slow pace
has similarities to such works as Valhalla Rising, where
the Odin-like character played by Mads Mikkelsen wanders
a desolate Scottish landscape while taking pilgrims to the
promised land. Despite the slow pace, Dawn is able to suck
its audience in, and leaves you hanging on to every word.
This is not a film you watch purely for the story. The way in
which the Icelandic landscape has been turned into a hazy and
moody desert is well worth watching the film alone. Landscape has always been a key part of Norwegian films, and
Hultgreen has taken this element and turned it into something
fresh and new. The titled angles, purple colouring, and wide
shots contribute to the concept that this is an unbalanced and
empty world. The actors remain cold and almost expressionless throughout the entirety of the film, which creates a sense
of hopelessness and isolation. All of these beautifully crafted
elements combined creates a science fiction film that both
compliments and expands on the genre. The story shows a
well-researched concept on ritualistic behaviour and futuristic ideas that contribute to making the story believable.
Overall, Dawn is a realistic science fiction film that creates
a sense of beauty through isolation, and shows that cinema
can indeed be used for works of art. This is a fresh addition to the world of Norwegian cinema, and shows that the
countrys films are on the way to becoming world-renowned.
101
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references and bibliography

Force Majeure and the Bystander Cinema of Ruben
Ostlund
Schanzen)
5 - Southern Jutland
1 - Here too is a parallel with the discourse in Play, wherein the

female bystander takes things from being about a singular thief to
being about larger injustices.
2 - Ironically, Mats ski trip away from his kids seems no different
than that of Ebbas friend, Charlotte, whos positioned as a modern
and empowered woman for taking time away from her kids.
3 - Knight, Curtis. Ruben stlunds Avalanche is just the First
Threat of Force Majeure. National Post, Movies. Oct 29, 2014.
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/10/29/ruben-ostlunds-avalancheis-just-the-first-threat-in-force-majeure/#__federated=1
4 - Lattanio, Ryan. Force Majeure Ruben stlund Answers 10
Questions. Indiewire. Nov 10, 2014. http://blogs.indiewire.com/
thompsononhollywood/force-majeure-director-ruben-ostlundanswers-10-questions-20141021?utm_campaign=force-majeuredirector-ruben-ostlund-answers-10-questions-20141021&utm_
medium=social&utm_source=Facebook&utm_content=force-majeure-director-ruben-ostlund-answers-10-questions-20141021
5 - ibid.
6 - ibid.
7 - Incidentally, this is another exceptional moment of form and
content matching each other by stlund, as he literally and figuratively cuts through the tension by cutting to the inboard black-andwhite camera on the drone, as it knocks over wine and crashes into
Mats.
The Legacy of Matador
1 - Slaughter bench Dybbol

2 - Judgment Day Als
3 - A television licence is an official record of payment required
in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the
possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in
full or in part by the licence fee paid.
4 - (Danish: Slaget ved Dybbl; German: Erstrmung der Dppeler
1: https://sweden.se/society/children-and-young-people-in-sweden/
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bergson
3: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/intl/?page=&view=byw
eekend&wk=2014W39&id=_fPOJKENMEDGULDBYX01
4: Nilsson, Linda-Marie; Lukas Holgersson, 13: Jag vill inte ha
fler huvudroller nu <http://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/article17690093.ab> 20/10/2013 (translation Lizzie Taylor)
1864
How to be Danish, Patrick Kingsley, Short Books, 2012
The Secret of the Danes
Hjort, Mette., Jrholt, Eva., Redvall, Eva Novrup. Danish Directors

2. Dialogues on the New Danish Fiction Cinema. Bristol: Intellect,
2010.
Petrie, Duncan., Hjort, Mette., Cinema of Small Nations. Indiana:
Indiana U.P., 2008.
What Actually is a Real Human?
Agger, G. (2010). Approaches to Scandinavian Crime Fiction.

Working Paper no. 15. Aalborg: Krimiforsk.dk
Lacob, J. (2012, June 20). Forbrydelsen, Borgen, The Bridge:
The Rise of Nordic Noir TV. Retrieved from http://thedailybeast.
com
Redvall, E. N. (2012). Institutional Authorship and Creative Agency: The Making of DR Television Drama Series. In OnEdge no. 2
(pp. 28-31). University of Southern Denmark: Knowledge Lab.
Rare Exports: A Chirstmas Tale
Copier, L., 2013. Satanic Santa: An Apocalyptic Christmas in Rare

Exports. Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 3(3), pp. 289295.
Kp, P., 2012. Directory of World Cinema: Finland. Bristol: Intellect.
Nestingen, A., 2008. Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction,
Film and Social Change. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
Lukas Holgersson
For a more detailed bibliography, as well as a list of all image sources, head to:
http://www.cinemascandinavia.com/issue7reference/
102

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CINEMA SCANDINAVIA

Issue Seven | Winter 2014

Force Majeure and the Bystander

welcome to issue seven

Piers Ford | England

Kate Moffat | England

The Nordic Council Film Prize

In case of no emergency: the bystander

Aerobics: Presenting mental illness in

Read about the top five Nordic films of the

As one of the top films of the year, how

The infernal santa claus in

One of the top Swedish indie films of the

misantropolis: a new hope for

A recently debuted web series,

the secret of the danes

1864: denmarks largest national

Adam price: not just for the danes

An interview with the einstein couple

The legacy of matador

Explore the dimensions of the demonic

The biggest Swedish child actor, explore

the popularity of Danish drama

60-67 t he provocative cinema of

The Keeper of Lost Causes / kvinden i buret

The Absent One / Fasandrberne

Speed Walking / Kapgang

Of Horses and Men / Hross oss

Paris of the North / Pars Norursins

The Look of Silence

Olmo and the Seagull

Force Majeure / Turist

Aerobics: A Love Story

Peter von Bagh was also one of the

focus on 20 Scandinavian features

Lars von Trier

by 2.500, was awarded to the Finnish documentary film Once I Dreamt

The Legacy is the Best Danish Television Drama

DR Fiktions hit series The Legacy

Sidse Babett Knudsen received a

NORDIC ADMISSIONS UPDATE

The Legacy has been sold to to US production company

The top five Scandinavian films of the year

The Bridge season three has begun filming, and is due

The Commune by Thomas Vinterberg

directors starting new films:

Rolf Lassgrd will star in

The Nordic Council Film Prize

words: Frederick Bov

ing a scene will change between being at a coffee place or

The Nordic Council Film Prize

Force Majeure feels like an arrival, and Ruben stlund is a master of

Previous Nordic Council Film Prize Winners

Denmark | Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Sweden | Director: Ruben stlund

Sweden | Director: Pernilla August

Denmark | Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Denmark | Director: Lars von Trier

2008: You, The Living

Sweden | Director: Roy Andersson

2007: The Art of Crying

Denmark | Director: Peter Schnau Fog

Sweden | Director: Josef Fares

will be seen as a meta-movie about himself, and, of course,