After seeing the trailer, I had no intention of watching this Danish movie, but certain factors and friendships collided such that I found myself at Angelika last night, doing precisely that. The trailer had promised a film that fit neatly with my earliest memory of what a "foreign film" is, provided by my mother who, when I was seven or eight years old, said something to the effect of "I don't like American movies because it's just a bunch of explosions and sex and shallow people. Foreign films have more character development."
This film circles precisely around that concept—character development—tracing the portrait of a self-made millionaire's family, and adding color with regular revelations of family secrets. Papa/Jørgen (Rolf Lassgård) , a corpulent walrus, lovable when reading to his children at bedtime and loathsome when conducting business, appears to be considering a philanthropic project which would fund an orphanage in India. He insists that the orphanage send Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen), a suntanned ideal of a man—tender with the children, quiet on the surface, and clearly seething with stormy passion behind his eyes—to Denmark for meetings before giving them the funds.
This is only the setup for a plot including surprise relations/parentage, cheating spouses, terminal illnesses, and a fascinating sort of ethical blackmail. Many will find the chain of surprises unrealistic, but that didn't bother me so much. The director includes a few "artistic" shots that ought to have been done away with (worst offenses: shots of taxidermied heads and eyes; less offensive offenses: excessive shots of human eyes; offenses that didn't particularly offend me but offended my company: excessive shots of decaying plants back lit against the open sky—I actually rather liked these). The film is a bit too long, and Lassgård's tantrums are a bit melodramatic, but there are worse ways to spend one's Sunday night.
On another topic completely, a few notes:
Picking your nose is okay.
Picking your nose on the subway is only rarely okay.
Picking your nose and eating it is never okay.
Picking your nose and putting in a library book is not okay.
Picking your lover's nose is okay, if done behind closed doors.
Picking your nose at work is okay, but you should use a Kleenex to mask what you're doing.
Picking your nose in the street in Manhattan is okay.
Picking your nose in the street in San Francisco is not okay.
Picking your nose in front of your mom is okay.
Picking your nose in front of your dad is not okay.
Picking your nose in the car is okay, but for chrissakes don't put in on the car seat. It's your car, goddammit!
Picking your nose in the shower is awesome.
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