When I went to see this film, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but as I had recently seen some danish/Scandinavian comedies ("Adam's Apples", "Together", "101 Rejkjavik"...) I suppose I expected something of the kind. God was I wrong. I'm not saying this movie isn't funny - on several occasions there are witted, well-placed gags and (Scandinavian) almost non-sense-jokes that made me laugh out loud, but the core of the film is rather serious - it is about fate, about love, about the drama of life, the very core of human being.
In the center of the story are three characters: a man and a woman who used to love each other but split up under dramatic circumstances, and the nowadays husband of the woman, a rich businessman with a strong character you don't quite know what to think about most of the movie. The ex-lover had escaped from his life to India to take care of poor orphan children and is rather being pushed back than returns to his past life in Denmark, where he lost what he never hoped to find again. The past events come to light in the course of the events, and the bitter feelings of yesterday poison the relationships of today. At first, it all seems a big coincidence, but the more you proceed the more it becomes clear that the events all seem to follow some kind of plan. Feelings come up and get swallowed down, things essential to one's life perturb the characters' minds and force them to have second thoughts about what they thought was past, and the spectator, not entirely limited to one character's point of view but focused on the "intruding" ex-lover's perspective, lives it all with the protagonists.
The scenes and settings are carefully chosen to emphasize the dramatic atmosphere, catching you with its strength and striking simplicity and not letting you go until the very last picture. It 's been a long time since I last saw a movie that impressed me like this one, coming back to my mind for several days, throwing up fundamental moral questions about good and bad, love and hate, life and death. And yet, in the end, unlike other Scandinavian movies of the kind which sometimes leave you alone and when the credits appear you wish they would continue and turn everything right (like "Festen" or "Lilja 4-ever"), after the two hours of this film you feel like everything's alright somehow, God chokes, but he never kills. I suppose you have to be Scandinavian to make a movie so impacting, so intense, so beautiful, so sad.
In the center of the story are three characters: a man and a woman who used to love each other but split up under dramatic circumstances, and the nowadays husband of the woman, a rich businessman with a strong character you don't quite know what to think about most of the movie. The ex-lover had escaped from his life to India to take care of poor orphan children and is rather being pushed back than returns to his past life in Denmark, where he lost what he never hoped to find again. The past events come to light in the course of the events, and the bitter feelings of yesterday poison the relationships of today. At first, it all seems a big coincidence, but the more you proceed the more it becomes clear that the events all seem to follow some kind of plan. Feelings come up and get swallowed down, things essential to one's life perturb the characters' minds and force them to have second thoughts about what they thought was past, and the spectator, not entirely limited to one character's point of view but focused on the "intruding" ex-lover's perspective, lives it all with the protagonists.
The scenes and settings are carefully chosen to emphasize the dramatic atmosphere, catching you with its strength and striking simplicity and not letting you go until the very last picture. It 's been a long time since I last saw a movie that impressed me like this one, coming back to my mind for several days, throwing up fundamental moral questions about good and bad, love and hate, life and death. And yet, in the end, unlike other Scandinavian movies of the kind which sometimes leave you alone and when the credits appear you wish they would continue and turn everything right (like "Festen" or "Lilja 4-ever"), after the two hours of this film you feel like everything's alright somehow, God chokes, but he never kills. I suppose you have to be Scandinavian to make a movie so impacting, so intense, so beautiful, so sad.