denmark

WWSFF: Opening Night Gala Programme

by James McNally on June 12, 2007

in Film Festivals

The Danish Poet
The Danish Poet

Tonight’s pro­gramme con­sisted of award-winning shorts released in 2006, and just watching them one after another led me to a few con­clu­sions about short films in gen­eral. To com­pare them to written works, they’re a bit like poems to a fea­ture film’s novel. And to com­pare to spoken word, they’re like jokes as opposed to sagas. With such a short amount of time, they need to make their points quickly, so there is often a high “clev­erness” factor and the end­ings often feel like the punch line of a joke. This can work well, but a film that stands out is one that doesn’t make these tropes so obvious. Here, in my order of enjoy­ment, are tonight’s selections:

  • The Danish Poet (Canada/Norway, 2006): With lovely nar­ra­tion from Liv Ullmann, this story felt the most organic and the least gim­micky. Even though there is a sort of punch­line “payoff” at the end, it’s tele­graphed early enough to set us down gently. The whim­sical anim­a­tion style and always-great use of anim­ated (but non-speaking) animals made this a worthy Oscar-winner this year. Check out the film’s web site. (9/10)
  • Dreams and Desires — Family Ties (UK, 2006): Another anim­ated short, this one clev­erly used anim­ated sketches to sim­u­late a wed­ding video filmed by the oddly cinephilic Beryl, a large woman of grand­moth­erly vin­tage. Her attempts to film the dis­astrous occa­sion in the styles of famous dir­ectors from Eistenstein to Riefenstahl, all the while keeping up a steady stream-of-consciousness nar­ra­tion, keeps this one rol­licking along, des­pite the nearly impen­et­rable accents. (9/10)
  • Tanghi Argentini (Belgium, 2006): This is a charming tale of an office drone who just might be an angel. André needs to learn to tango in two weeks so he can meet his Internet crush, so he turns to his col­league Frans to help teach him to dance. Will love bloom? (8/10)
  • Contact (Raak) (Netherlands, 2006): Three char­ac­ters paths cross again and again in this cleverly-edited short. There’s that word “clever” again. (7/10)
  • The Substitute (Il Supplente) (Italy, 2006): A class of high-school stu­dents is ter­ror­ized by a Scott Thompson (ex-Kids in the Hall) lookalike, who then gets his comeup­pance. Funny in an odd sort of way. (7/10)
  • Make A Wish (Atmenah) (USA, 2006): A straight­for­ward, almost documentary-like tale of a young girl who will go to any lengths to get a spe­cial birthday cake. Only it’s set in the West Bank. The film­making is pretty rudi­mentary and there’s a bit of a (tragic) punch­line at the end. (6/10)
  • Imagine This (Australia/Ireland, 2006): Sometimes a short should also be a “small.” Using found internet footage to make George W. Bush “sing” John Lennon’s “Imagine” was a pretty funny idea. But it really shouldn’t have made it off the YouTube site. (5/10)

Tagged as: animation, belgium, canada, denmark, italy, netherlands, norway, palestine, shorts, uk, worldwideshortfilmfest

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Red Road

by Jason Chu on May 30, 2007

in Film Festivals,TIFF

Red Road

Red Road (Director: Andrea Arnold, UK/Denmark, 2006): I saw Red Road back in September as part of TIFF, and it was def­in­itely one of my favour­ites. The dir­ector was on hand to explain the concept behind “The Advance Party”, a project/concept for a tri­logy of three films of which Red Road is the first.

I didn’t know any­thing about The Advance Party before seeing the film, nor did I realize that Lars von Trier was involved at all, so that was a pleasant sur­prise. It is an intense, riv­eting piece and I really enjoyed how the themes and plot slowly rolled out. It was espe­cially inter­esting after­wards, too, to read the char­acter descriptions/restrictions that Arnold and the next two films’ dir­ectors were given to work with.

Red Road

As the film is con­cluding its fest­ival tour, Indiewire has a short art­icle which details Red Road’s suc­cess and also sheds some light on The Advance Party, including some chal­lenges that Arnold faced working within its structure.

UPDATE: The film will open in Toronto at the Royal Cinema on June 29th.

Official site for the film

More inform­a­tion from Glasgow Film

Interview with dir­ector Andrea Arnold at Reverse Shot

Tagged as: denmark, independent, larsvontrier, scotland, TIFF, uk

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The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun

by James McNally on April 22, 2007 · 2 comments

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun

The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun (Director: Pernille Rose Grønkjær, Denmark, 2006): Mr. Vig is an eld­erly bach­elor living in a broken-down castle. For years, he has dreamed of estab­lishing a mon­as­tery there, “to create some­thing enduring,” and so, sensing he doesn’t have long to live, he invites the Russian Orthodox church to use his prop­erty. They send a small group of nuns to check the place out, including the shrewd Sister Amvrosya. They leave and then return in a few months, and Mr. Vig spends time trying to clean and fix the place up. Once the nuns are more estab­lished, he finds him­self but­ting heads with Sister Amvrosya over the renov­a­tions and the future plans for the mon­as­tery. But for the first time in his life, he seems to have entered a domestic rela­tion­ship with a woman, and finds the con­tent­ment that seems to have eluded him in his long life.

This film was unbe­liev­ably touching and beau­tiful, from the 35mm cine­ma­to­graphy (which is becoming rarer all the time in the world of doc­u­mentary film­making) to the soundtrack to the very low-key dir­ec­tion. There are many small grace notes throughout the film, like shots of Sister Amvrosya and Mr. Vig walking in the garden, or her pre­paring food for him. Everything is unspoken, but there is a very real bond between these two.

Throughout the film, Mr. Vig laments that he just isn’t like other people, that he doesn’t know any­thing about love, that when it comes to emo­tions, he’s “deformed” or “a cripple.” And yet, he invites people into his house, invites God into his house, and it somehow becomes a home.

The meta­phor seems obvious but it’s true. The house is the man. Ramshackle, run down, a little dirty, per­haps, but full of inter­esting things and stories, and ulti­mately beau­tiful. This quietly powerful film will stay with me for a long time.

Official site for the film

9/10(9/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs07, christianity, denmark, Documentaries, Hot Docs

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Island of Lost Souls

by James McNally on April 14, 2007

in Film Festivals,Sprockets,TIFF

Island of Lost Souls

Island of Lost Souls (Director: Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark, 2007): Essentially a Harry Potter clone, but a very good one, Island of Lost Souls (or the more evoc­ative Danish title De Fortabte Sjæles Ø) fea­tures Lulu, a 14-year old girl in the wizard’s role. When her family moves to a sleepy pro­vin­cial town, she thinks she’ll be bored. That is, until the ghost of a man from the 1870s takes over her younger brother’s body. Using her interest in the super­nat­ural to solve the mys­tery brings her up against an evil nec­ro­mancer who’s bringing souls back from the dead and con­fining them on an island nearby. With the help of nerdy Oliver (a Rupert Grint lookalike), her brother Sylvester (though he’s really 35-year old Herman from the 19th cen­tury) and the local dis­il­lu­sioned psychic, she con­fronts the nec­ro­mancer in an effects-filled finale.

This was a very slickly pro­duced film that bor­rowed just a little too much from the Harry Potter uni­verse. The art dir­ec­tion, lighting, cine­ma­to­graphy and even the spe­cial effects reminded me of the Potter films. Despite that, or more likely because of it, the film is an enjoy­able ride. Lukas Munk Billing does an excel­lent job of morphing between the scruffy young Sylvester and the ser­ious Herman, though the rest of the char­ac­ters feel much less sub­stan­tial, our heroine Lulu in particular.

Official Site (Danish)

7/10(7/10)

Tagged as: children, denmark

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In a Soldier’s Footsteps

by James McNally on May 7, 2006

in Documentaries,Film Festivals,Hot Docs

In a Soldier's Footsteps

In a Soldier’s Footsteps (Denmark, 2005, Director: Mette Zeruneith, 89 minutes): Truth really is stranger than fic­tion. When we first meet Steven Ndugga in 1999, he’s a per­son­able and artic­u­late refugee living in Denmark who approaches the film­makers wanting to have his story told. A former child sol­dier, he escaped Uganda with his life, but lost his wife and son. Years later, during the filming of this doc­u­mentary, he receives inform­a­tion that his son is still alive, and is in fact now a child sol­dier him­self. After Steven returns to Uganda to find his son, he dis­ap­pears. Over the next five years, he reappears and then dis­ap­pears again, and the story just keeps get­ting stranger. Like a Graham Greene novel, the film finds the truth elu­sive, but it makes a fas­cin­ating tale.

Article about the film on the Danish Film Institute web site

9/10(9/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs06, denmark, Documentaries, Hot Docs, uganda

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