Saturday 4 January 2014

"The whole town is listening. Tell me! What do you want to say?"


I don't know how much my readers are interested in / know about Danish cinema, so let me clarify the story of Jagten to you. Lucas is a teacher in kindergarten teacher, trying to get his son's custody, but everything gets - excuse my language - fucked up, when a daughter of his best friends claims that Lucas has showed her his penis. And after that, so many other children seem to say that Lucas has molested them, which makes him easily the most hated person in town, even though he hasn't done anything. But since kids never lie, no one wants to hear him defending himself. 

After you realise what the story is, the whole movie turns so agonizing. You feel bad for Lucas, but you can't really hate anyone who accuses and / or hates him, since they honestly think that Lucas has molested kids. Because if you heard that kind of stuff about someone, of course you'd hate them. But yeah, you can't really blame or hate anyone for how they react. Not even the kid that caused the problem, because well, she's a kid, and sincerely feels bad about everything that's going on. But I think that's what made the film awesome. There's no simple good guys or bad guys, which is a really good thing about a drama movie. Also, there's no side to choose, you just watch it, knowing that Lucas is innocent, but there's no way to be on anyone's side. I don't know.

The scenery of this film was really breathtaking. Autumn looked so beautiful with all the colours, first snow looked like it was straight from a fairytale.

The ending was a bit weird. It just happened and you get no explanation what happened, suddenly it's just next year and ... yeah. 

Danish actors and Danish movies are just starting to seem more and more better than the average Hollywood crap we get from everywhere. I'm so glad I have so many fantastic Danish movies left to watch. So hear my advice: watch Danish movies. Or Swedish, Norwegian, even Finnish... anything Nordic. We know what we're doing. (Before any Finnish reader says that Finnish movies are crap, then you're just not looking hard enough.)



2 comments:

  1. I agree about standard Hollywood crap. Most people I know won't even spare a moment to watch a film unless it's a 'real film' [not animation] and they speak English. Too bad for them :)

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    1. Exactly. And Hollywood also does the same kind of films over and over again, like all romantic movies they make are basically "here is too attractive white people, but will hey find love?" But at least all romantic Danish movies I've seen always have something different in them, and I like that.

      And yeah, as someone who doesn't speak English as first language, I feel really bad for those whose taste in movies is constrained because of the language issue.

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