Brødre (aka Brothers) (2004) (Denmark)

[hengcs]

This movie has garnered the
-- Best Actor Award and Best Actress Award at San Sebastian Film Festival 2004
-- Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival 2005
-- Critics Award at Hamburg International Film Festival 2004

Well, in my humble opinion, most of the synopsis gives too much away. Hence, I shall refrain from doing so. All that I will say is:
-- At a lower level, it is a family drama that begins with a typical near perfect elder brother and seemingly all bad younger brother. Predictably, everything is not going to be as clear!
-- On a higher level, it is about life: Whether we really have control over life! The movie begins with and "nearly" ends with the same scenes/lines/message ... the gist of the message is, "In life, there is no right or wrong ... there is no good or bad ..." More precisely, how would we handle things beyond our control.
-- It is also about love: What will we do for love?

Despite being a low budget film, using a hand-held camera and video, it is pretty well directed. Initially, the director keeps "paralleling" certain scenes by alternating them. I have to admit that I prefer the beginning scenes, and the last half of the movie. Somewhere in the middle, although it is still good, it is not very different from many family drama that I have watched.

The movie is good in depicting reality, with the exception of the "plot twist" (if it can be called that). I believe some audience may find it slightly unconvincing. Nonetheless, for most part of the movie, acting/plot/dialogues/etc do come across as natural, especially from the cast. Indeed, the cast is worth commending!

In sum, many who have family/kins/friends who are sent to war will be able to identify with some issues. Worth watching!
;)

[arsaib4]

I liked Brødre quite a bit also. It's a gripping drama featuring an absolutley brilliant performance from Connie Nielson. She is Danish but I believe this was her first local film and she ended up winning the Danish "Oscar" for her troubles. Her physicality was exploited well by Assayas in demonlover and here director Susanne Bier (Open Hearts) has also employed it to her advantage.

*Btw, if you are watching these films at the festival, how come you're not using that thread you started?

[hengcs]

Originally posted by arsaib4
*Btw, if you are watching these films at the festival, how come you're not using that thread you started?

Hmmm ...

(1) Unfortunately, it is not the San Francisco Film Festival. I have attended quite a number of Film Festivals over the last few months. oh no ... *guilty* hiaks hiaks ... This movie is from the Sonoma Valley Film Festival. I also watched Innocent Voices there. I am "surprised" that Innocent Voices was not in SFIFF. So, I was contemplating whether it is ridiculous to drive 2 hrs there and 2 hours back ... ;( ... Finally, I was "convinced" that by watching 2 movies back to back, Brothers and Innocent Voices, it may be worth the drive ... ha ha ha ... In sum, since there was NO folder for Sonoma Valley Film Festival, I started a new thread.

(2) Well, I have always contemplated posting a film as it is versus a film under festival. The problem with putting it in festival is -- others will find it difficult to add comments or search for all the comments related to the SAME movie -- all of the posts will end up in different parts of the Film Festival posts. If I am watching, say 20 movies, in the Film Festival, it will be interspersed by different movies and follow ups ... and it will be difficult for people to read all the follow up posts on the same movie ... Hmmm ... I am not sure about others' take on this ... I often find myself "lost" in the "Latest movie watched folder" too ... sigh ...

e.g., I will soon be watching THE WORLD, which I believe there will be more talk about it this year ... should it have a new folder or should it be under SFIFF?

(3) For some films, I think it deserves to be watched, so I just want it to have a folder by itself ... ;) ... hee hee ... For those films that I watched just for fun, I usually do NOT post.

[arsaib4]

Winner of the audience award at Sundance earlier this year, Brothers (Brødre), meticulously explores the emotional and psychological terrain of characters that are in a lot less control of surrounding circumstances than they claim or want to be. While angst-ridden story lines are nothing new to current Danish Cinema (remarkable and challenging features like Per Fly’s Inheritance and Christoffer Boe’s Reconstruction -- both commercially released last year in the U.S. -- have resolutely examined a few key subjects), it is quite bracing to observe young and talented filmmakers reassessing certain themes and issues with their own set of techniques and values. Lars Von Trier may now be fighting his "wars" elsewhere (though still from the comfort of his own home -- much to the chagrin of many), he has helped cultivate a crop of individualized talents who are just starting to make a name for themselves, and the director of Brothers, Susanne Bier, is just one of many. Right now, Danish cinema is one of the healthiest in the world.

In this emotional family melodrama, Bier vividly portrays three individuals whose internal turmoil pours out in the open once they have to deal with extraordinary events. Michael (Ulrich Thomsen of Inheritance and the Dogme hit The Celebration) is an upstanding individual, a well-respected army major, and a loving husband and father. On the other hand, his aimless younger brother, Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas from Reconstruction), is a drunk, a troublemaker who has just been released from prison for bank robbery and assault. However, once Michael is called in to help with reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, Jannik partly assumes his role -- in helping his wife, Sarah (Connie Nielsen), and their two young daughters. Not long after Michael's departure, they get the devastating news that his helicopter was shot down and he’s assumed dead. One way or the other, family dynamics have now changed forever.

Brothers is a relatively conventional story (at times it even resembles your average TV movie-of-the-week), but Bier has an acute sense of detecting various behavioral patterns in her characters. Her austere direction (aided by a somber score of Johan Söderqvist), a sharp and fast-paced screenplay (from Anders Thomas Jensen), but most of all, it's the performances that bring this film to greater heights. Nielsen, who gave a towering performance as a deliciously cold "corporate-demon" in Assayas’ demonlover (although she’s most recognized for Gladiator), once again displays her talent which was often wasted by Hollywood (Nielson won the Danish "Oscar" for this role). Ulrich Thomsen is fine once again (although one wishes that some of the sequences involving him that took place in Afghanistan were handled better). Brothers doesn’t quite reach the stature of Bier's previous film, the Bergman-esque Open Hearts (Dogme#28, 2002), but it is still a worthy effort.

Grade: B

*BROTHERS was released by IFC Films/ Focus Features on May 6th.

[arsaib4]

Some facts and figures from the Danish Film Institute:

6 Danish features – at least - have been on the top 20 list in Denmark every year since 1999.

More than 25m tickets were sold in Europe and USA to the 20 best performing Danish feature films 1996-2004.

73% of the total theatrical market in Denmark is held by Danish/Scandinavian distributors.

22 Danish feature films received production support from DFI in 2004. Their average production budget was 2.2m euros. The average government subsidy was 38%.

38 Danish short & documentary films received production support from DFI in 2004. The average government subsidy was 37%.

More than 10% of the total DFI production support will be spent on development in 2005.

62 films were restored at the DFI Film Archive in 2004.

More than 100,000 visitors saw 1,027 titles at the DFI Cinematheque in 2004.

[Chris Knipp]

SUSANNE BIER'S "BROTHERS" (BRØDRE): A REVIEW

BY CHRIS KNIPP

Damaged goods

[WARNING: possible spoilers]

Brothers (Brødre) is about going away to war and coming back damaged and violent. It's also about how the dynamics change not only when a family member is away at war -- one of the brothers is an officer sent to Afghanistan -- but change again even more drastically when he returns. Brothers is harrowing to watch. That's its success. It has to disturb. Otherwise it wouldn't have done its job. But I felt so brutalized by this film that I could barely think.

Michael (Ulrich Thomsen), the officer, has a beautiful wife, Sarah (Connie Nielsen) and two pretty little girls, Natalia (Sarah Juel Werner) and Camilla (Rebecca Løgstrup). His parents live nearby -- his mother Else (Solbjørg Højfeldt) steady, young-looking; his father Henning (Bent Mejding) bossy, a bit sullen, a drinker. Michael's younger brother Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is handsome in a rough way, drinks, smokes, smiles, likes a laugh. All these people are filled in with a handheld camera whose vérité edginess links events in Afghanistan with happenings in the family back in Denmark.

The single, jobless Jannik is very much a part of this tight little family but he's a punching bag for the father and Michael because he's always had trouble and is now just out of prison for a bank robbery and assault. He doesn't seem to be looking for a job and both the other men scorn him.

Nevertheless, Jannik's a strong presence at the farewell dinner before Michael, a major in the Danish army, leaves for a second mission to Afghanistan, this time of three months. Jannik's blunt criticisms of the Danes' making war in Afghanistan (which Michael has called "rebuilding a country") are pungent and not unconvincing. Jannik is his own man, and despite his unimpressive life so far, he speaks with confidence and is the more charismatic of the two men. Michael's stolid inwardness isn't very appealing.

Michael seems to have been hoping for an easy tour of duty, but on arrival in Afghanistan he's immediately told he must go and find a young Danish soldier who's just gone missing in enemy territory. That's cut short as quickly when Michael's helicopter is shot down over water and back home he's declared dead. In fact Michael is taken prisoner and something horrible happens. This part of the story, which is cut in briefly between scenes of the family back home, isn't shown in detail; everything happens bang! bang! bang! What we see at the enemy encampment alternates between long periods of silent hopeless waiting and a few moments of intense brutality.

In response to the news that Michael is dead the family regroups as it grieves. The previously careless Jannik finds he deeply misses his brother and reacts by taking on some of Michael's responsibilities, spending time with the two girls, getting a couple of boozy carpenters to help him finish the kitchen Michael left under construction and then continuing to work with them as a team. Michael's absence has made Jannik grow more serious. He still gets drunk -- this is a hard-drinking country -- and runs out of money at the local bar, but this time he calls Sarah at four in the morning and she cheerfully comes and collects him. Jannik and Sarah, who were at loggerheads, are discovering they like each other. Occasionally they kiss, but Jannik resists the temptation to go further. He befriends Natalia and Camilla, who bond with him.

Eventually American troops storm the Islamist encampment in Afghanistan where Michael is held and rescue him. He pretends not to remember what took place there while he was a prisoner but he does. When he is returned to Denmark, he's distant, angry, numb, and inarticulate. He stays bottled up and gradually gets worse. He can't deal with the new dynamics and is sure his wife has betrayed him. This leads to a crisis that as the movie ends may finally be forcing Michael to speak up and get help.

The question is, though, can any help he receives, even if it comes, resolve the residue of Michael's brutal Afghan past now? Michael is complicit in an event for which he might justifiably feel forever guilty. There's no forgiveness in sight as the movie ends, and judging by a shocking declaration from little Natalia, the girls seem to have thrown their allegience in with Jannik and turned against their father. When he finally loses it and grows violent, it's scary and life-threatening, and you wonder how this family could ever be safe with him again.

The shattering experience Brothers provides is hard to assimilate, and that's probably intentional. But the persistent difficulty is that the character of Michael is never really sympathetic, even at the beginning, and hence his transformation is less complex for the viewer than it might have been. Jannik is a more successful creation: the way he is written and acted strikes a nice balance between unreliablity and warm appeal from the start. But the movie is not notable for its subtlety. The beautiful Connie Nielsen provides a winning, serene presence that doesn't intrude unduly on the events that swirl around her. If it were not for her and Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Jannik, there would be no one much to sympathize with.

[oscar jubis]

I found Sussane Bier's family drama quite successful in terms of depicting human beings realistically within conflict-laden situations. Jannik's transformation when faced with Michael's absence rings true as part of this family's dynamic. His restrain when faced with the possibility of sexual intimacy with Sarah seemed to be revealing character aspects heretofore unacknowledged by relatives, who have perhaps underestimated him. I reserve specific praise to the writers' acute observation of children's behavior. A favorite moment is Natalia's refusal to hug Michael goodbye and his instigating a game of "2-against-1" to foster the physical closeness he needs from the girls. When the girls "turn against their father" (CK), they are not making a choice per se but acting out of instinctual self-preservation.

The themes developed by Bier and her collaborators seem quite familiar and I'd have difficulty pointing out anything novel content-wise. Similarly, within its limited ambition, I can't find any major flaws. I would have liked to witness how Michael managed to fool the trained shrink involved in his debriefing, which is not shown but is routine procedure for personnel under his circumstances. Since the film alternates between Sarah and Michael's point of view, the film's "universe" could have naturally incorporated this significant event I find particularly interesting.

But Brothers works as is, thanks to a large degree to the wonderful acting from the whole ensemble. I was surprised how much I remembered from Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration) and Nikolaj Lie Kass (Open Hearts, The Idiots)'s previous performances. These actors certainly leave a deep impression. I'd also like to point out Bier's use of very brief, extreme close-ups and rapid intercutting to capture tiny but telling gestures. Not a style I tend to favor but I have to admit it serves her purpose well here.

[Chris Knipp]

Very prrecise and judicious comments. Good point about the shrink and Michael. That aspect is simplified; one might perhaps argue that all the "male" aspects and "war" aspects are less specific and knowledgeable than the intra-familial ones. It's a powerful, if not terribly original, movie; I personally didn't find its merit quite equal to its power, but I suspected it would interest you more than me.