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Reviews
Så som i himmelen (2004)
An inspiring film about how music can bring people together.
As it is in Heaven is a beautiful story about how one person can have a huge impact on the lives and relationships of others. It is a film about people overcoming obstacles, learning to do what they love, and coming together over one thing, music. This movie is very well made and it is one that will have the viewer very emotionally invested.
The movie starts out by following a man named Daniel Daréus, who is a very gifted musician and a world famous conductor. Unfortunately for him he has a medical condition that eventually forces him to give up his job as a conductor, because it places too much stress on his body. Daniel decides to move back to the very small Norwegian town that he grew up in, and he purchases the old school building as his new home. The people in the town, especially the folks in the local church choir are very excited to have Daniel in town because they think he can help them. However, Daniel is not very receptive to that idea at first, but after finally agreeing to listen to them sing, he realizes that they very good, and agrees to help them. Before rehearsing any songs that they are going to sing Daniel teaches them the importance of things such as balance and harmony. He works with a host of different personalities and voices, but he eventually manages to pull it all together and make it work. At the end the choir ends of performing in a big singing contest in Austria, and they put on a very moving performance.
One theme is this movie seems to be angels, or guardian angels. At the beginning of the film we saw Daniel as a young boy getting beat up by some bullies because he was a little different from them. It turns out one of those bullies, Conny, was married to Gabriella, a very talented singer in the choir. She was also getting abused by Conny, and everyone, including Daniel knew about it. After realizing early in the film that he would not be able to physically restrain Conny from hurting Gabriella, and seeing that she was too afraid to leave him, Daniel wrote a song for Gabriella to sing at their performance that was intended to make her feel like a strong and independent woman. She was not receptive to it initially, but she ended up putting on a great performance which eventually gave her the strength and confidence to leave Conny. Daniel, with help from all the others in the choir, helped give Gabriella the strength to do this because they were sort of her guardian angels. We also see Daniel play the same role for Inger, who is struggling in her relationship with Stig. Daniel helps Inger to find what it is that makes her happy and what she has to do to accomplish that. Another example of this is Daniel's relationship to Lena. Daniel is infatuated with Lena the first time he sees her, and he is very moved by her singing voice. After eventually building their relationship, Daniel begins to get scared because he has never really loved anybody and he doesn't feel like he knows how. Lena teaches him how to love not only her, but everyone in the choir, and she helps Daniel find happiness before he dies.
Another theme in this film is overcoming fear. As mentioned, Daniel overcomes his fear of intimacy and learns how to love. Lena overcomes her fear of being hurt like she was with her previous boyfriend and learns to love and trust Daniel. Inger finally gains the courage to speak up against her pastor husband about her beliefs on sin, religion, and their relationship. Gabriella overcomes her fear of Conny and eventually stands up for herself and leaves him. Another example would be Holmfird's character, who has taken abuse from Arne his whole life but finally stands up for himself. There are many other examples in this movie of people overcoming their fears, and that seems to be one of the overall themes of the film.
There are many different themes in this film and several very important and complicated relationships that are followed. Overall I think that this film was very well done and I really enjoyed it. I would say my favorite part was when Gabriella was performing her solo. She has such a beautiful voice and the message of the song was so strong that it gave me chills. There were a few parts that I didn't like so much but for the most part I thought the film was great. One of the better Nordic films that I have seen.
Mies vailla menneisyyttä (2002)
A Finnish "comedy" that just doesn't translate
The Man Without a Past is a painfully boring film that offers very little entertainment value to the viewer. It's supposed to be a comedy about a man who cannot remember anything about his past, but there isn't a funny line in the entire film. The director, Aki Kaurismaki, failed to get me to care about any of the characters in the film because of the complete lack of action or emotion. The always stoic and timid characters made each passing scene more and more painful to watch. The plot is actually not that bad, but the way it's presented it feels like nothing ever happened during the film. I assume that cultural differences and perhaps the translation from Finnish to English had something to do with me not enjoying the film, but I believe that it was more than that. This is the only Kaurismaki film I have seen, but based on The Man Without a Past, I am not a fan of his style.
The story follows a man who was attacked and beaten in the park one night. After coming very close to death the man makes a full recovery with one exception: he can't remember anything about his past. After escaping from the hospital the man is later taken in and taken care of by a poor family that lives in an old shipping container. After being nursed back to health the man rents a shipping container of his own and starts his life over from scratch. After meeting and taking a liking to a woman while eating at a Salvation Army soup kitchen, the man goes to see her at the Salvation Army store where he gets new clothes and a new job. "The Man Without a Past" suddenly had himself a home, a job, a girlfriend, and even a dog. After learning that he has skills as a welder he tries to apply for a job, but he is unable to be paid until he opens a bank account. So, he heads to the bank to open an account, but unfortunately he gets caught up in a bank robbery and brought to jail. He is kept in jail for not giving the police any information about himself, which the police see as insubordination. He is eventually freed thanks to the help of a lawyer, but what he didn't realize is that the police posted fliers with his picture around town asking if anyone had recognized this mysterious man. A woman claiming to be his wife identified him, and he went to go visit her. He found out that he had been married and had just filed for divorce prior to his injuries. After learning that his past wasn't offering him any happiness the man heads back to his shipping container and his life with his new love Irma. Upon returning he finds that he is not really any different than the others that live in the area and that he is one of them. He may have been a man without a past but he had become a man with a future.
One theme of this film seems to be homelessness. The only time we see a character living in a real house is when he goes to visit his ex-wife. The family that took him in, the man that lived in the dumpster, the other men that went to the Salvation Army soup kitchen, and even Irma (lived in a dorm room) were all people who were very poor and struggling to get by. However, these people all made the most of their situations and seemed to enjoy their lives. One way that people did this, and another theme from the film, was by listening to music. After finding and getting the jukebox fixed, the man with no past introduces Rock and Roll music to the Salvation Army's choir/band. The group of young men are instantly hooked on the new "movement" and there playing of music becomes an important event for the lives of the poor and homeless people in the area. Even the woman who was in charge of the Salvation Army store took to the new movement and became the singer for the group's band. Music was the one thing that was bringing the community together in a positive way, and the man with no past was responsible for it.
Although I found the storyline of the film to be okay, I found the film itself to be very mediocre. A so called deadpan comedy gave us a cast of characters that brought zero emotion to the film. I cannot remember one person laughing at any point of the film, and I certainly wasn't laughing in the audience. There had to be a lot that was lost in translation here because the film was very awkward and uncomfortable to watch. I would imagine that without having to read the subtitles and being able to hear and understand how the characters were delivering their lines would have helped make it more entertaining. It could also simply be just a cultural difference that is the problem here. Either way, something was missing and it really hurt the film for us non Finnish speaking viewers. Overall I would say that the film is okay because the plot was decent, however I wouldn't recommend any English speaking viewers to expect this movie to be anything more than a drama, because it fails to deliver as a comedy.
Festen (1998)
Good Film.....In a Disturbing Sort of Way
For starters, the Celebration is definitely not a "feel good" kind of film, and it is certainly not a celebration. In fact, there are many points throughout the film that made me very uncomfortable. The film is very dark and has a very eerie feeling to it. The Celebration explores the interesting relationships of a very dysfunctional family. While gathering to celebrate Helge's 60th birthday some very dark and disturbing secrets are exposed that put quite the uncomfortable twist on the party. None of the characters in the film really come off as "likeable" and most of the scenes have sort of a dark/haunting feeling to them. It is not the easiest film to watch. With that being said, it is a very powerful film that will have your attention from start to finish.
The movie starts off by introducing us to Christian and Michael, two brothers on their way to their father's 60th birthday party. Right off the bat we get a peek into how unlikable Michael's character is when he forces his wife and children to walk the last few miles to the house. As the movie progresses Michael's character shows more and more flaws and doesn't win anyone over. Christian, on the other hand, is a tough character to read. He's very quiet and does't show a whole lot of emotion (at least right away). He seems to be the one who has it all together, but we later find out that he's got a dark secret that is haunting him. After revealing his startling secret during his "toast" to his father, Christian puts a very emotional twist on the dinner party which puts a great deal of strain/tension on just about every relationship in the family. Even after everything is "worked out" you get the sense that this family will never gather together again, which leaves an uncomfortable/unsatisfying taste in your mouth. I believe that it was the filmmaker's intention to expose the flaws of all the characters to show the audience that this was a very real story. There is no Hollywood type of hero in this film who comes and saves the day. The unlikable characters are something to watch for in this film.
One other interesting dynamic of this film is that we don't really know who knows what, or how they know it. For example, Michael seems to believe that Christian is making up his story right away, but at the end you get the feeling, while Michael is beating his father, that he may have known about it all along and was helping to keep it a secret. Another interesting relationship is that of Christian and Ken, the cook. It seems as if they had planned all along to reveal this secret in front of the whole family, but it was hard to tell if Christian and Ken liked each other, what exactly Ken knew, or how he knew it. All we know for sure is that Ken was involved in taking everyone's car keys so that they couldn't leave until they heard the truth, so he seemed to know something about Christian's secret. It was also hard to tell if Christian's sister, Helene, knew about his secret. When he was giving his toast Helene had a look of fear on her face like she knew what was coming. However, we don't know if she knew of this secret all along or if she just found out about it after reading the letter she found. Also, Helge's wife defended her husband up until he finally admitted to abusing his children, and then it seemed like she wanted nothing to do with him after he admitted to it. What is strange is that she, according to Christian, witnessed the abuse first hand in 1974. So she was either in denial the whole time, she was just protecting her husband, or Christian made that story up. We never really find out what she knew or why she defended Helge so much. This film leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions and leaves it up to your imagination to decide what happened. This was my first Dogma 95 film, and I have to say that I am not sold on this style just yet. For me, the lack of lighting or props wasn't a huge deal (although the lack of lighting did contribute to films overall haunting feeling), but the use of the hand-held camera didn't do it for me. I will say that I did get used to it as the movie progressed (it really annoyed me at first), but I still didn't particularly care for it. It just seemed a little strange to have all of these very powerful and emotional scenes that were shot with unfocused/unsteady cameras. It was a little distracting to me, and I think that it actually took away from some of the emotion of the film. However, I do think that, in a documentary sort of way, the use of hand-held cameras makes the film feel a little more "real," but one thing that annoyed me with this film was the very unreal fight scenes. They couldn't have looked more fake, and they were just about the only comedic value the film offered. Overall I think that the dogma style did, in some ways, enhance the film from an emotional standpoint. However, I believe that with this storyline already filled with tons of emotion, a little more production value may have helped.
Conclusion: The Celebration is a good film and is worth watching, however, you may only want to watch it once because it will leave you with an uncomfortable feeling.