The Guilty

The detectives who feature in crime novels, particularly Scandinavian ones, are usually troubled souls. They're a bit too devoted to their jobs, and as a result their relationships fail. They're a bit prone to cutting corners to get a result in a case, and so are often in trouble with their bosses but they inspire complete loyalty from their work partners.

Asger Holm, the star character in The Guilty is just such a Scandinavian police officer. He's been suspended from regular police duties since he shot a criminal and has been reassigned to working in the call centre answering 112 emergency calls. A routine evening in the centre is coming to an end when a woman who has been abducted by her husband phones in and we see Asger's detective and organisational skill at work despite him never leaving the desk.

Asger is a huge character and he features in every scene. He's compassionate and thoughtful, persuasive, determined  and unwavering. He's a classically flawed hero and he is totally worth watching - both for his character and his hugely expressive and largely flawless face.

The film is very clever, with the plot detail  unfolding with each phone call between Asger and the woman  (Iben), and Asger and Iben's daughter, a Asger and the staff who dispatch offices and cars around the city . (The instant nature of the dispatches is truly impressive if you've ever been made aware of New Zealand's rationing of police resources). Despite being filmed entirely in the call centre, the Guilty keeps you on the edge of your seat, as a thriller should, and the realisation that things are not exactly as you first thought is nicely gradual.

Anne's rating 4/5, Ian's rating 4.5/5

Holiday

Director Isabella Eklöf's Holiday is set in the bright sun and colours of a Turkish resort town. Bikinis, swimming pools, clubwear, nightclubs and colourful amusement parks. It is a film about power relationships.

Sascha is the trophy girlfriend of Michael, a Danish gangster more than twice her age. From Michael's point of view, there isn't much of a downside to this relationship. For Sascha, it is more of a trade-off. Endless leisure time and material benefits on one side and verbal, sexual and physical abuse on the other. Is it a reasonable trade-off?

Michael, family and close colleagues are on holiday at a coastal Turkish villa. Consequently, Sascha is isolated from anyone outside Michael's circle of friends, with only casual holiday contacts which she certainly can't rely on to counterbalance Michael et al. Understandably Sascha takes a cautious, timid and mostly passive role in proceedings though her most dramatic act is certainly decisive as is the subsequent decision. Sascha's passivity and her lack of lines leave it very much up to us to conjecture what is going on behind the sunglasses.

While ostensibly filmed from a Male Gaze perspective, the camera often shifts to view Sascha and what is happening to her in a non-glamourous way. There are also plenty of scenes to disturb (including a rape). There were 2 walkouts in the showing I was at (one loudly telling us what he thought).

My initial reaction was that the message of this message was that women should burn their pushup bras, miniskirts, bikinis and high heels and put on their baggy overalls and comfortable shoes. But on further consideration perhaps Isabella Eklöf wants us to consider our relationships and the relationships of those we might judge in all their facets, trade-offs and consequences. What do people get from their relationships? What is the downside? How easy is it for them to get out of situations?

After reading other reviews, I see I am not alone at finding this a difficult film to process.

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Ian's rating 2.5/5

Land of Mine

Land of Mine dramatises a little-known slice of post-World War 2 history -  German POWs were assigned to clearing mines from the Danish Coast in 1945. This has a sort of poetic justice since it was the German Army that laid the mines if the first place, but if Land of Mine has anything to teach us, it's that war is generally unjust and that it brutalises both sides.

The small group of POWs in Land of Mine are only teenagers and they are scared of their job, and scared of their Danish sergeant. They're billeted on a farm on an achingly beautiful stretch of coast with white sand and turquoise water. The woman farmer is being paid by the Danish Army to feed the troops, but she just pockets the money. So the boys are hungry and the work is dangerous but on the other hand they're outdoors,the weather is ok and they're not being shot at.

 It's hard to explain why a film about clearing mines from Danish beaches is my favourite of the festival so far and why you should see it, especially since a significant number of people do get blown up. I think it's the contrast of youth and and beauty (both the landscape and the soldiers) and age and brutality. And the paradox of the sergeant bawling his charges out for minor misdemeanors (such as apologising) one minute and playing football with them on the beach in another. I can't promise you a happy ending exactly but let's say there are enough acts of human kindness to leave you with a sense of hope.

Anne's rating 4.5/5, Ian's rating 4.5/5

A War

A Danish military outpost gets involved in the local community, as does the Taliban, things get messy and people die. Like Tobias Lindholm’s previous film A Highjacking he keeps parallel story lines running and interlacing, using international phone calls filmed from both ends. One story line in familiar territory (Denmark) and the other in exotic territory (in this case Afghanistan).

While focusing in close on the banalities of his character's lives Tobias Lindholm gets us to identify with people even if their situations are completely foreign to us. This tight focusing on particular characters also clearly divides the cast (and the world) into us and them. He then jerks the curtain aside to expose our own prejudices.

I didn't find this film as tense or as interesting as A Highjacking. The domestic life in Denmark was boring and the message of the film was hammered home with the subtlety of a hammer blow. Who are the NATO soldiers in Afghanistan actually fighting for? Does it work? Who are they trying to protect? What, if anything, is the life of an Afghan civilian worth? But the film was well acted and the characters believable, even if the message is one of despair.

Ian's rating 3/5 Anne's rating 2.5/5

When Animals Dream

Marie is growing up, getting her first job, interacting with boys, getting a mysterious rash on her chest and discovering disturbing things about her non-speaking wheelchair bound mother. The small, dull, featureless Danish fishing village is an appropriate setting for the rising tension between Marie and her workmates. It also matches her pale blonde complexion. Marie's father is caring but inarticulate and it is left to Marie to figure out her mother's secret and her inheritance.

When Animals Dream is not a blood bath horror movie nor a Disneyfied glorification of the supernatural like the Twilight series nor a bloody soap opera like True Blood. When Animals Dream is much more a coming of age film for a lonely girl with an unusual difference. I thought the ending was a bit weak but it might appeal to those given to revenge fantasies.

The special effects and on screen violence is kept to a minimum. The focus of the story is the emerging secret and how Marie is going to cope with it. It is clear that like any predator that can kill people, Marie is in mortal danger herself. Humans don't like to be endangered, except by themselves.

Ian's rating 3.5/5

A Hijacking

We mostly hear about Somali pirates on the news. Because the ships are kept anchored off the coast they are beyond the gaze of media, we get very little detail on what goes on. This Danish film demystifies the reality of piracy - at least from the point of view of the crew and shipping company. The emphasis is on the confusion, misery, fear, claustrophobia and power struggles. There isn't a hint of Hollywood in this low key movie. Yet our emotions are being played on as we adjust our views of the three main characters: Mikkel the cook, Peter the CEO and Omar. Omar the pirate's translator / negotiator in particular is a superbly ambiguous character. Is he really employed by the pirates or is he their leader?

This is one of those films that only when the credits roll do you realise how tense you have been. Also compare with the documentary The Captain and His Pirate.

Trailer

Ian's rating 4/5

The Ambassador

If there is a fine line between serious documentary and comedy then Mads Brügger hasn't found it. Rather he weaves back and forth from wry observation and buffoonary to jaw dropping serious documentary revelations. The Ambassador takes investigative journalism to new territory in film making as Mads takes up the post of Liberia's diplomatic representative in the Central African Republic.

The fact that a Dane is representing one African country in an other, fails to raise an eyebrow in Bengui, is not due to extreme politeness in African culture. Rather it is due to the quaint custom of selling diplomatic posts. The access to government officials coupled with the diplomatic protection that an ambassador or consul has, makes a diplomatic post and passport a valuable commodity to an truly entrepreneurial businessman (or woman). This is especially true in countries where government ministers and officials control the access to valuable commodities such as diamonds, or where you might want to carry small items or large amounts of cash through customs without being searched. Small or poor countries can't afford to send diplomats every other country in the world and in some countries government salaries don't completely meet the lifestyle requirements of government officials. In these cases someone turning up at the right place with the correct amount of cash can purchase a diplomatic passport and accreditation from that country to some other country. Assuming these unpaid diplomats can turn this capital outlay and the access opportunities into a successful business deal or two, it is a win-win situation.

So many of these diplomatic posts and passports are available and so many people want them that there are agencies who act as middlemen and deal with the messy details - for a fee. The Ambassador starts with Mads Brügger approaching two such agencies in search of a suitable passport and credentials. The head of the first of these agencies (a paranoid Brit) bans cellphones and cameras from his meeting with Mads, introducing us to the secret camera work and recording that makes up much of this film. Luckily much of this secret footage is remarkably good and adds to the verisimilitude of the film.

Once armed with a diplomatic passport a slightly foppish "Mr Cortzen" turns up in Bengui as the Honorary Consul for Liberia. Where this "Cinderella of diplomacy" makes contacts with the government, fellow diplomats and other local characters. Some of these are happy to advise or assist the new diplomat in the "do"s and "don't"s of operating in the Central African Republic. This brings up the secondary theme of this film. The interference that foreign governments and foreign companies have over third world countries. The Central African Republic imports a lot of low tech goods that could be manufactured locally, people who have tried to set up factories to manufacture such goods for the local market hit a series of obstacles that eventually bankrupt them. The people that Mads talks to claim these problems are due to outside interference by companies who currently make money out of the status quo. On a larger scale France is accused of interfering at a level varying from not passing on information that might protect the country from military invasion to fomenting coups and murdering people who cross them. This is a subject that is big enough to justify its own separate documentary.

Mads attempts at getting involved in the diamond trade cost him a lot of money in "envelopes of happiness" and illustrate the layers upon layers of people involved in this murky industry. He uses performative journalism, in his own words "instead of disguising as a fly on the wall observing neutrally, I dress for my part and interact as an agent provocateur". This technique gets him a lot closer to his subjects and captures them in their natural environment, in way that traditional journalism almost certainly couldn't.

Ian's rating 5/5

An interview with Mads Brügger.

Klown

The Incredibly Strange section of the Film Festival programme is usually a bit hit and miss, and this year it seems to be more miss than hit - the other things we've seen being The Cabin in the Woods and Sightseers. I bravely went to Klown by myself, inspired the "blisteringly funny" description. My hopes were further raised immediately beforehand by the review on the TV 3 website, which said "I have not laughed so hard while watching a movie in a very long time. In fact, a friend and I managed to sustain the giggles right through the closing credits and were still guffawing out onto the street afterwards, sides aching, tears rolling down our cheeks".

Klown has a reasonably amusing premise. Two men (Casper and Frank), who appear to be in committed relationships with very nice women, go on a "boys own" canoe and camping trip without their girlfriends. At the last minute, Frank decides he will take his girlfriend's 11 year old nephew Bo along because he wants to demonstrate his potential as a good father. Since the purpose of the trip is debauchery, you can see this isn't going to turn out well, and Casper is justifiably upset.

Anyhow, off they go and Casper tries hard to have sex as often as possible. The trio gets thrown out of a camping ground, capsize their canoe, eat a lot of pancakes, visit a music festival and a brothel and smoke pot. Casper and Frank give Bo a hard time because he has a small penis. And....that's about it. Some of Klown is funny, and some (like Mr Bean), is painful and some is in poor taste. One of the things that annoyed me is that, like lots of American comedy, one of the basic premises of the movie is that men are more stupid than women and I think that this is lazy, and inaccurate. Klown seemed like "Tool Time" or "Malcolm in the Middle" with rude bits. It's always hard to say why something does or doesn't seem funny, but I'll go on record saying I don't find men doing stupid things while women pick up the pieces intrinsically funny. Perhaps I like my comedy to be equal opportunity. I laughed a bit, but not hard and not often. Disappointing.

Anne's rating 1/5