Jagten / The Hunt (2012) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / April 5, 2013

This. Is. Emotional. Thoughtful. Filmmaking. That’s what it is, really. It’s the kind of movie where you become fully engrossed in the drama, unaware of your own time and place. But what is it about, you might say. Well, it’s about a man named Lucas who is wrongfully accused of child molestation. That’s it, basically. That is the movie summed up in one sentence. But the real payoff lies in the great performances, particularly by Mads Mikkelsen who plays Lucas and the social questions the film implicitly raises. These can’t be sensed by summarizing the plot, but arise naturally from the story as it develops.

            Mikkelsen was a real eye-opener for me. I had seen him in Casino Royale, playing the villain Le Chiffre, but his performance in Jagten is something else. His role is an emotional one, trying to desperately fix a situation spiraling out of his (and anyone else’s) control, but his performance is more on the subtle side of things, never overacting. There’s a scene where he asks his best friend Theo whether he believes that he could have molested his daughter, Klara. Much to Lucas’s astonishment, Theo does not immediately reject the idea and you can see the slow realization in Mikkelsen’s eyes that Theo thinks very differently of him now. It’s all in the eyes.

            The film starts out slow, with many scenes setting the stage for what is to happen. Director Vinterberg allows us to first become acquainted with Lucas and his social circle, so that when ‘the hunt’ actually begins, the change is all the more visceral. Klara, the daughter of Lucas’s best friend Theo, is quite attached to Lucas. He is there for her when her own parents are not. At one point she kisses him which he makes clear to her is not appropriate. In her frustration she lies to her kindergarten principal that Lucas touched her inappropriately. Soon the whole village knows and everyone rejects Lucas immediately, worried that he might go after their own children too. The entire film basically shows the consequences of this little lie and the impact it has on Lucas’s life which I’ll not talk about here. I was worried how such a film might end, but it definitely did not disappoint despite it being a rather open ending. It’s an ending that’s fully relevant to the film’s theme and leaves one with a growing amount of questions regarding parenting, evidence versus hearsay, sons taking the blame for their father’s (in this case supposed) sins, etc.

            Jagten reminds me in many ways of the witch hunt McCarthy conducted in the 1950’s. The example of sons taking the blame for their father’s sins reminds me of a case during the McCarthy hearings. Milo Radulovich, a lieutenant in the Air Force reserve, was discharged after his father and sister were accused of being communists. I'd like to end this review by quoting US senator John McLellan (yes, I had to look up the name) who made an important statement during the 1954 House Un-American Activities Committee hearing of Annie Lee Moss - the one where McCarthy famously left. After he left, his chief counsel Roy Cohn made a statement which McLellan then rebuked because he, Cohn, was merely alluding to evidence instead of presenting it. When senator Karl Mundt subsequently ordered what Cohn said to be stricken from the record, McLellan immediately emphasized the impossibility of such an action: “You can't strike these statements made by counsel here as to evidence that we're having and withholding. You cannot strike that from the press nor from the public mind once it's planted there. That's the – that is the – evil of it. It is not sworn testimony. It is convicting people by rumor and hearsay and innuendo.”

After the Wedding (2006) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 4 September 2014

Efter brylluppet (After the Wedding) was directed by Susanne Bier who had directed Brødre (Brothers) two years earlier and would go on to direct the Academy Award-winning Hævnen (In a Better World). After the Wedding is all about human beings reacting to the dramatic circumstances around them. If that sounds like 99% of all films ever made, you’re probably right, but as with many other Danish films, there is a certain affinity with human drama and ‘realism’ present here that can often found to be lacking in Hollywood dramas. Here, it definitely ups the relatable human drama factor, but can also occasionally make the film feel a bit like watching a soap opera.

             After the Wedding is centered on a number of characters. Indeed, there is no real main character which is a strength of the film, but also a weakness. We begin in an orphanage in India where Jacob (played by the ever understated Mads Mikkelsen) works. He works hard to care for the children there and has a particularly close friendship with Pramod. However, there are money troubles. Then, out of nowhere, he is told that a company in Denmark is willing to provide him a donation if he is willing to close the deal himself in Denmark personally. This annoys Jacob as he dislikes the all too comfortable Western way of life. He agrees however, thinking he’ll be back in India before he knows it. He says goodbye to Pramod, goes to Denmark only to find out that the CEO, Jørgen, is still on the fence whether he’ll donate the money or not. This surprises Jacob. Jørgen however invites him to his daughter’s wedding as if nothing’s wrong. There he discovers in a tense scene that Jørgen’s daughter might be his. He thus realizes he was brought here on purpose by Jørgen and his wife, Helene (who is also Jacob’s former girlfriend), to reunite him with his daughter. This triggers an array of wonderfully dramatic confrontations where, among other things, Jacob must decide whether to stay with his ‘real’ family in Denmark – even though he’s never spoken to his daughter – or return to Pramod in India with whom he is so close he might as well be family. The film is thus basically interested in the definition of family. The scenes where the daughter is torn between her strange, newfound feelings for her ‘real’ father and her long-established feelings for the ‘father’ she’s known all her life are good examples of how After the Wedding explores this theme.

            Like I said, the main appeal of this film are the scenes where two or more characters talk with or confront each other. There is one between Jørgen and his ‘daughter’, one between Jacob and Helene, etc. These scenes where seemingly ‘real’ characters react to one another feel very real and intense and it is these scenes that form the core of the film and the main reason why you should watch it. That said, it’s precisely these scenes that – despite the acting quality displayed by the cast – can make the film feel like a soap opera, one melodramatic scene after the other. One scene in particular featuring Jørgen suffers from this.

            I also had some problems plot-wise. Spoilers ahead. Because Jacob goes to Denmark and becomes increasingly conflicted whether or not he should stay in Denmark or go back to India and Pramod, I got the impression that whatever decision he makes will have major consequences as to how other characters will think of him. How would his daughter feel if he went back to India? Also, staying in Denmark would devastate Pramod. This, combined with the film’s penchant for drama, made me believe tragedy would be in store for me. In the end, however, this is all resolved surprisingly easy, so much so that it makes me wonder if the film laid enough of the groundwork that it deserves its ‘happy ending’. Jacob stays in Demark and with the help of Jørgen’s money financially supports his orphanage in India where he meets Pramod again. Jacob invites him to live with him in Denmark, but Pramod refuses since Jacob used to rail against the easy, Westernized way of life. And then, the film ends….what?

            This brings me back to how the film can sometimes feel like a soap opera. Yes, there are wonderful and satisfying dramatic scenes, but in the end, what’s the point the film is trying to get across? To show that one’s ‘real’ family (your own blood) is more important in one’s life than one’s other ‘family’ (Pramod)? Pramod reminding Jacob of his old ways of thinking seems to suggest a political, Anti-Western point of view, but the rest of the film doesn’t support this. Questions, questions… The anti-climax doesn’t help matters either. In the end, the film can feel like merely a collection of dramatic scenes that resolve themselves in the end without a lot of collateral damage. Then again, when the drama is as involving as seen here, these criticisms can easily be cast aside.