The Salvation

THE SALVATION                  C                                

Denmark  Great Britain  South Africa  (89 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  Kristian Levring

A conventional western with big named stars, shot in South Africa using painted backdrops resembling John Ford’s infamous Monument Valley in the American West, but unfortunately the viewer can’t escape the wretched excess of sadism that is so prevalent throughout this picture, from start to finish, as if similar themes from Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN (1992) were used as a model of success.  In truth, the excessive sadistic streak is a poor substitute for authenticity, as it hides and covers up the human dimension of these outlaws, making them one-dimensional characters that few of us have ever met in real life, as people are simply more complicated than that.  This need to saturate Hollywood films in sadism is an unpleasant phase of the industry at the moment, where once it runs its course, perhaps they’ll get back to making good movies again.  This Danish production is a reminder that immigrants once helped settle the West, building homes, working the land, and trying to survive in America’s unforgiving territory.  Set in the 1870’s, following Danish wars with Germany and Austria in the First Schleswig War (1848–51) and the Second Schleswig War (1864), losing both, resulting in significant loss of land, after which there was a considerable migration of people overseas looking to start a new life, the film stars Mads Mikkelsen as Jon, an ex-soldier, now a peaceful European settler living in the American heartland with his brother Peter (Mikael Persbrandt) in a house they built.  With both coming from Denmark seven years earlier to stake their claim and start a life, the film opens as Jon’s wife Marie (Nanna Øland Fabricius, Danish singer-songwriter and dancer better known by her stage name Oh Land) and 10-year old son arrive on a train to join them.  Hopping on a stagecoach that will take them to their homestead outside of town, two gun-toting outlaws kick out the other couple that was supposed to be riding with them, turning this family reunion into a more ominous journey, where drink eventually gets the best of them, turning the outlaws into beasts, killing the boy, throwing Jon off the stage where he’s left for dead while they have their way with his wife.  Following on foot, he tracks them down where they’ve killed the driver and his wife as well, wallowing in their drunken delirium, and shoots both men dead, a small recompense for what he’s lost. 

After burying his wife and child, when he returns to the town of Black Creek he discovers one of the men he killed is the brother of notorious outlaw Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a former officer of the Confederacy and a man who bleeds the town dry by intimidation, where the sheriff (Douglas Henshall) and mayor, who also doubles as the undertaker (Jonathan Pryce), both do his bidding, bowing down to his every demand.  Delarue rounds up the town and tells the sheriff he has two hours to find the killer of his brother or he’s to pick two people from town that will be killed.  An impossible task, they actually pick an old woman and a mentally challenged boy to be sacrificed, but for Delarue, that’s not good enough, as he continually escalates the stakes, murdering another man in cold blood for starters, claiming there will be more by the hour until they find the killer.  Jon is implicated by a frontierswoman who helped him survive his perilous, near death journey, where his brother is thrown into jail while he is handed over to the outlaws, strung up on a post with both feet off the ground, brutally beaten, and left to rot under the hot sun as he considers his fate.  The Princess (Eva Green), a formidable presence of a woman and the widow of the man he killed, has a large scar across her lips where she had her tongue cut off by Indians, supposedly rescued by that scoundrel of a husband.  She controls the business end of this band of cutthroats with her air of upper class sophistication, wearing only the finest garments money can buy, becoming something of a fashion plate out in the middle of nowhere.  With his brother gone, Delarue takes advantage of the situation by ravishing the Princess, forcing himself upon her with a certain degree of arrogance and relish, where it’s obvious she has nothing but contempt for this man.  One of the problems with the Western convention is the reliance upon cliché’s, where good and evil become moral absolutes, where bad men are such loathsome examples of a depraved humanity that they become caricatures of the psychotically deranged.  Delarue is a direct descendant of Gene Hackman’s Little Bill Daggett deriving such sadistic pleasure in UNFORGIVEN.

It doesn’t take much effort to figure out that the two brothers will ultimately have to stand up to this gang of killers before a cowering town of weaklings, following in the footsteps of Gary Cooper in HIGH NOON (1952), but before the day is done, blood will line the streets of Black Creek which will come to resemble a town of corpses.  Because of the exaggerated way it complies with western expectations, much of this is inadvertently humorous, where some of the dialogue is so over-the-top that it comes across as overly stereotypical.  Using plenty of CGI digitally altered images, there are majestic desert landscapes that suggest an endless frontier, but the Delarue ranch lies in the middle of a bleak and barren desert where nothing grows, where they actually have buzzards circling overhead as Jon has another near death encounter.  Rescued by his brother however, who makes his own clever escape, it’s clear these two have their work cut out for them.  Because of Jon’s weakened condition, Peter hides him in the mountains while he sets off in another direction, hoping to confuse the tracking killers, but in no time at all Jon realizes he must face the end of the journey alone.  Meanwhile, the Princess takes advantage of the confusion surrounding the prisoner’s escape to make her own run for it, taking the money from the vault and heading for the train out of town.  While there’s some degree of suspense to her efforts, especially after she believes the train has safely begun to move, but the approach of men on horses seals her fate as she is captured and led back to the ranch.  Rounding up some kid from town whose father was murdered right before his eyes, Jon sets out to singlehandedly accomplish what no one else has dared by standing up to these killers.  It has the look of a military operation, where each attack comes in phases, but there’s nothing here that we haven’t seen before.  Mikkelsen, as always, is simply outstanding, as is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as his ruthless counterpart, but no one else in the cast distinguishes themselves in this rote version of a classic western standoff, where the outcome is all but determined before the first frame is shown.  Even the music by Kasper Winding is a conventional Hollywood score, where despite Levring’s best efforts, there’s nothing particularly surprising or inventive that he brings to the genre.    

The Hunt (Jagten)

THE HUNT (Jagten)        A-          
Denmark  (115 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Thomas Vinterberg          Official site

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breast full of milk
And a manger full of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

—Gustav Holst, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” words by Christina Georgina Rossetti  King's College Cambridge 2005 #4 In the Bleak Midwinter Gustav ... YouTube (4:35)

Historically, we think of women accused of witchcraft being burned at the stake, depicted in Carl Dreyer’s THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928) and DAY OF WRATH (1943), where Sweden in the 17th century executed as many as 71 accused witches in a single day, where the vast majority were women, estimated at more than 75%.  While the hysteria surrounding these witch hunts is well documented in Europe and North America, there is a similar outcry against those men accused of child molestation, the subject of Fritz Lang’s brilliant police procedural M (1931), where Peter Lorre is the psychopathic pedophile who can’t stop himself from kidnapping and murdering little girls.  In Lang’s film, the criminal element detested the crime as much as the police and the general public, actually putting the criminal on trial before a jury of his peers, other criminals, where the police break in just before they are about to put him to death.  Another spellbinding effort is Todd Field’s Little Children (2006), where Jackie Earle Haley is a convicted pedophile who is forced to register his whereabouts with the police, whose address is then posted by community do-gooders throughout the town, notifying his neighbors, writing inflammatory graffiti on his sidewalk, literally hounding him wherever he goes.  The hysteria surrounding his presence in a public pool filled with little children is simply unforgettable.  In a sense, these are all FRANKENSTEIN (1931) movies with a riled up mob carrying torches, shovels, and pitchforks chasing a monster through the forests, where it all feels like a bad dream or a figment of our imagination, where afterwards we have to ask ourselves:  Did that really happen?  Vinterberg re-introduces similar thoughts in a close-knit but small town rural atmosphere, where local tradition sends the men into the forests with guns, where the sign of passing from adolescence into manhood is the first instance of killing wild game, where the men get excessively drunk afterwards to celebrate, singing hunting songs and expressing camaraderie while they continually drink themselves into a stupor.           

Mads Mikkelsen is Lucas, something of a gentle giant, whose imposing size does not detract from his love of children, allowing all the boys to pile on top of him at school where he works as a kindergarten teacher.  One fearfully shy and particularly vulnerable little girl, Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), is often left alone after school where Lucas kindly walks her home, as she’s the daughter of his best friend and next door neighbor, Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen).  Lucas oddly lives alone in one of the more palatial estates in town, where he’s going through a particularly messy divorce, rarely able to see his teenage son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrøm), who he adores, made more difficult by an ex-wife that refuses to talk to him on the phone.  Lucas has a newly developing love interest, Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), a Russian immigrant that works at the school, which coincides with an anticipated visit from Marcus, who would prefer to be living with his father.  All happiness is thwarted, however, by a relatively minor incident, where Karla wants to jump on top of Lucas along with the rest of the boys, planting a big kiss on his mouth, where she’s sternly admonished by Lucas afterwards who reminds her that kissing on the mouth is only for parents and family.  But this causes a certain hurtful embarrassment to Karla, seen alone sitting in the dark after school, still brooding about the incident, discovered by the school principal Grethe (Susse Wold) when Karla inexplicably starts describing sexual images from a graphic porn site her brother was watching and attributes this to Lucas.  While Grethe is a concerned citizen who fears for the welfare of the school children, she calls in a child psychologist.  What’s immediately clear by the inappropriately leading questions and the school’s failure to include the parents in the interview is this town has no history in dealing with this matter, where their very lack of professionalism further inflames the situation, where the story only escalates, spreading ugly rumors behind the scenes, as soon other children start describing similar episodes, and before long not only the school and the parents, but the entire town viciously turns against Lucas, making him a pariah, where people are disgusted and revolted by his presence, shunned by his best friend, refused service in the local market, where even his girlfriend has doubts about his character. 

Succumbed by the mass hysteria, Lucas is the picture of disarray and personal turmoil, isolated in his lonely castle, afraid to come out, where there is nothing he can do or say that anyone would believe, as the general community belief is that “children don’t lie.”  Even as Karla confesses that Lucas didn’t do anything wrong, adults refuse to believe her, thinking this is a symptom of sexual abuse, where a child wants to believe nothing happened in order to protect themselves from the evil that did occur.  In all too many instances, that’s exactly what does happen, as memories are suppressed, and only after years of intensive therapy can one separate illusion from reality.  It may be 10 or 20 years before some severely traumatized sexual abuse victims realize what actually happened.  Vinterberg’s film is an interesting contrast to a recent Danish film also starring Mikkelsen, a historical depiction of a scandalous affair taking place in the 18th century royal court of Denmark in Nikolaj Arcel’s  A Royal Affair (En kongelig affære) (2012), while this film recalls Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936), William Wellman’s The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), or Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (1956), films where someone is wrongfully accused.  Vinterberg layers this lynch mob mentality in Christian beliefs, as Lucas becomes a Christ-like figure who is despised and rejected in a flurry of hatred, where church music, like Carl Nielsen’s “Mitt hjerte alltid vanker” Mitt hjerte alltid vanker - Carola - YouTube (4:08), the hauntingly sublime Michael Praetorius - 'Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen' - YouTube (2:15), or Gustav Holst’s Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” King's College Cambridge 2005 #4 In the Bleak Midwinter Gustav ... YouTube (4:35), become not only a countering Christmas message but also an ode to winter, a contrast to some of the bleakest and most despicable human behavior.  In this way, it’s hard “not” to identify with the wrongfully persecuted, where much of the raw and dramatic power of Mikkelsen’s staggering performance is his ability to absorb and endure the wrath of his enemies.  In this manner, there’s a certain texture to this film, especially the bleakness of winter, poetically rendered through a silent landscape or a child’s appreciation for the first snow The Hunt [Jagten] (2012) - Thomas Vinterberg - YouTube (1:28), or a single church seen as a gathering place where the entire community meets for Christmas services, where the town’s intolerance is thrust against the Biblical teachings of Christ, particularly as it reflects upon children, where the smallest among us have committed no sins, where the ire of indignation is squarely pointed in our own direction, where the film is in essence a commentary on evil, and how easily we tend to blame outsiders for all that’s wrong with the world, while we are the makers of our own misfortune.   

A Royal Affair (En kongelig affære)

A ROYAL AFFAIR (En kongelig affære)             B+         
Denmark  Sweden  Czech Republic  (137 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  Nikolaj Arcel         

Official site

Anyone who has seen a Karl Theodor Dreyer film knows exactly what this film is about, especially the corrupt power of the Church which in the mid 18th century still believed in torture, heresy, and fear mongering, spreading vicious rumors to undermine any threat to their own power, creating such a repressive, punishment oriented society that they were viewed with disdain by the rest of neighboring Europe which was undergoing an Age of Enlightenment, led by radical free-thinking French such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau that endorsed individual freedoms over tyrannical and oppressive regimes, ideas that sparked American independence while also leading to The storming of the Bastille, which opened the doors of the French Revolution.  But while the rest of the world was enjoying newly discovered freedoms, Denmark remained entrenched in a corrupt monarchy run by the repressive regime of the Lutheran Orthodox Church which advocated tortuous punishments.  This is the background of the film, a kind of Danish Dr. Zhivago, told with the same epic sweep where a doomed and illicit romance is set against the backdrop of history.  Shot in ‘Scope by Rasmus Videbaek, the luscious visual composition along with the largesse of the natural landscape impresses from the outset, where one can’t help but think it’s been ages since Hollywood produced a movie with such a glorious look to it.  But of course, they’d need big name stars that would cost a fortune, any one of which would cost more than the entire budget of this film, as they’d never invest in anything less than proven star material, yet here the Danes have mastered the epic historical romance for a little more than $8 million dollars, easily making it look better than most $100 million dollar Hollywood movies.  That’s likely the reason the film is one of the 5 nominated Best Foreign Films, a gorgeous costume drama that actually has a superb story to tell, based on two novels, Per Olov Enquist's The Visit Of The Royal Physician, read ahead of time by both the director and fellow screenwriter Rasmus Heisterberg, but owned by a publishing company that refused to sell the rights for the movie, as they were looking to negotiate a better deal translating the novel into English, so screenwriting credit goes to Bodil Steensen-Leth's erotic novel Prinsesse Af Blodet.  What one comes away with after having viewed this film is the severity of the subject material, feeling positively Shakespearean, based on real events, one of the great stories in Danish history, all the more impressive the way these extraordinary actors make it come alive onscreen. 

The director is known for having written the screenplay, adapted from the Stieg Larsson novel, for the Swedish version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2009), much superior to the American David Fincher version, in my view, as it best captures the depth and interior strength of the characters, which is certainly the captivating allure of the immensely popular novel.  He has done the same here, where the film begins and ends with Alicia Vikander, who won the Swedish Best Actress Award several years ago for her performance in Pure (Till det som är vackert) (2009), playing Caroline Mathilde, a gorgeous and highly educated member of the British royal family.  Reminiscent of Sofia Coppola's MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006), her family has arranged a marriage to the young King of Denmark, someone she’s never met, making her Queen of Denmark at the age of fifteen, where the opening landscape sequences frame the horse-driven coaches and the royal entourage as tiny objects at the bottom of the screen, overwhelmed by the majestic beauty that surrounds them.  To her utter surprise, the man to whom she has been betrothed, Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), is mentally deficient, not overly so to the point of incompetence, but his infantile interests and crude, self-centered manner, subject to embarrassing outbursts, keep him secluded behind the walls of the royal palace where the nature of his condition is kept secret.  When they first meet, he has no interest whatsoever in marriage, but prefers the entertainment of watching plays and spending all his time with women of the flesh, enjoying a life of pampered decadence.  When it’s clear she has brains, talent, and much to admire, exactly what he lacks, he angrily warns her “Don’t steal my light!” as he needs to be the center of attention, with people constantly at his beck and call, where being King is more a game he plays, a theatrical role he relishes, while she’s called upon to display the aristocratic reserve and proper etiquette and manner of a royal head of household.  He sarcastically calls her “Mommy” throughout, as she’s constantly admonishing him for spending so much time in bordellos, eventually refusing to see him altogether, as it’s simply a waste of time.  While this is the surface reality, there is an ominous underlying tone in Caroline’s narration, where she is sometime in the future writing letters to her children, explaining the horrific circumstances as to why she hasn’t seen them.  These thoughts, however, are revealed sparingly, yet it interestingly provides insight into the present.   

Mads Mikkelsen plays Johann Friedrich Struensee, the son of a well known yet highly conservative German judge, seen as little more than a country doctor treating the poor at the outset, but we quickly discover he’s a bold and radical proponent of the Enlightenment freedoms, exactly the opposite of what his father stands for, so he keeps a low profile, writing materials anonymously.  His superior intellect and elegant manner, however, lands him a position as the personal physician to Christian VII, gaining his trust instantly by being able to quote Shakespeare, becoming his friend and trusted ally, though Christian views him as his favorite playmate.  Over time, Dr. Struensee wins over the royal court, having a positive effect on the King, who has fewer moments of outrageous instability, which impresses the Queen, who is struck by how he managed to sneak in censored books into his personal library, reading them all, quickly becoming intimate friends.  It must be mentioned that while the King is freely screwing every harlot in the county several times over, the Queen is isolated by duty and custom, raising a young son, but leading an extraordinarily repressive existence where she has little social life to speak of.  The intelligent conversations with Struensee feel like a godsend to her, a rare opportunity, leading to a scandalous secret affair.  This opened the doors for radical reforms, where the King, in a stroke of momentary clarity, literally dismissed the oppositional cabinet members loyal to the Church, allowing Struensee to craft new laws, eliminating censorship, abolishing torture, free labor, and the slave trade, while assigning land to peasant farmers, reforms that captured the attention of the rest of Europe, as if Denmark had come out of the Dark Ages.  When the Queen had another baby, however, almost certainly Struensee’s, it created a scandal and their brief window of freedom was coming to a close, acknowledging they underestimated the cruelty of the opposition, who began spreading vile lies and xenophobic rumors about the German’s influence, all designed to reassert what they claimed was their legitimate authority, eventually bribing their way back into power, arresting both Struensee and the Queen, sending him to the guillotine while exiling her for the rest of her life, but only after taking away her children.  While Gabriel Yared and Cyrille Aufort’s lushly scored music adds elegance and depth to the proceedings, it’s a riveting tale, told with exquisite detail, perhaps overly long, but the severity of tone is in stark contrast to that brief flurry of freedom and happiness where the doors are suddenly opened to a new dawn, only to be slammed shut again, torture and censorships quickly reinstated, leading Denmark once again back into the darkness.