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Rating:
Denmark is a strange and fairly atypical country in the European cultural landscape. Among numerous quirky, silent, sad, and offbeat films, I want to point out this little gem that garnered an excessive amount of awards in 2005: Sundance Festival Award, Audience Award in Toronto, Best Film at the Courmayeur Noir Festival, Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Danish Academy Awards, and so on for another 5/6 mentions (!!).
Yes, it's true, often these awards are half nonsense or "consolations" of under-the-table agreements to please this or that juror (the mechanisms of bad politics lurk everywhere), but in this case, I want to reward the courage and audacity of a little film that, in my opinion, is a true masterpiece. A perfect synthesis between the rawest Tarantino and the most epic and spiritual Kieslowski.
It's the story of a neo-Nazi (brilliantly portrayed by Ulrich Thomsen, a "rotten apple" of our society) who has to undergo a period of forced rehabilitation in a tiny religious community in a remote village in the valleys. A community of broken and deviant people, priest included. A slow descent into the shadows of the human psyche, into the delirium and nightmare of psychologically disturbed individuals (an Islamic terrorist, a kleptomaniac, a woman who believes she is pregnant, and others) who are seemingly kept in check by Father Ivan, a zealous, positive, and enthusiastic priest. A priest who, however, will also have his fair share of skeletons in the closet, as we will gradually discover...
A film with strong sacred connotations (there is a sort of reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments, all regularly broken) that knows how to effortlessly tread the line of sarcasm, cynicism, and irony, involving the viewer in a rising wave of captivating entertainment until the end.
94 minutes (not too long, therefore) of action, fun, reflection, plot twists, and profound but never pedantic or intrusive content (some phrases I had to jot down in a notebook due to the beauty of certain intense and unforgettable combinations) that don’t give a moment's respite.
An undisputed jewel by a director just 23 years old (!) who will certainly make waves, I'm absolutely convinced. One of the few films that had the rare merit of keeping me glued to the TV from start to finish and made me want to watch it again the next day (as it actually happened).
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