Original Title: Kærlighed på film
Director: Ole Bornedal
Starring: Anders W. Berthelsen, Rebecka Hemse and Nikolaj Lie Kaas
Runtime: 1hr38
Life in the suburbs as a father of two has worn down Jonas. When a victim of a car crash mistakes him for her boyfriend Sebastian, things take a very dramatic turn as the line between truth and deception is erased. (IMDB)
This is from the director of Nightwatch that I watched and really enjoyed a few weeks ago. The story is a little more sophisticated then Nightwatch but not one I can say I enjoyed, but found myself sucked into it anyway.
I actually watched this in two parts, about a week and a half apart because my ears got incredibly bunged up with wax which meant I couldn’t really hear anything so my memory of this film might be slightly off.
It begins with Jonas lying on the pavement in the rain, blood flowing out of his body as he begins to narrate his story. It begins with a woman, there is always a woman…
The woman is Julia. She is in Hanoi with her boyfriend Sebastian only things do not seem to be going very well. She left Denmark to explore the rest of the world – because what could a small pokey little country offer in the ways of love and adventure? In the first few scenes you see her shooting her boyfriend Sebastian and fleeing.
Meanwhile Jonas, who works as a forensic photographer for the police, is imagining a better life somewhere on an island in the Pacific Ocean where life would be better. He dreams of becoming a respected wildlife photographer published by magazines like the National Geographic. Instead, he is taking photographs of dead children in boring, pokey old Denmark.
His car is a heap of junk that barely even starts. Whilst he and his wife argue about the merits of getting a new car, as opposed to taking a holiday, the car stalls, causing the crash that brings Jonas and Julia together.
Julia is badly injured, causing both blindness and amnesia. Her family have never met her boyfriend Sebastian who they have heard so much about, so when Jonas innocently comes to the hospital to pay his visit, he is mistaken for this Sebastian. Now, unlike most people would do in this situation, he plays along with this misunderstanding because he feels guilty perhaps and because he doesn’t want to disappoint her obviously traumatised family.
Jonas gets caught up in this lie, unable to tell the truth, or perhaps unwilling. He wraps himself up in a daydream – a different life where he is this wonderful Sebastian, this romantic adventurer. It became a fantasy which slowly began to overtake his reality.
Within the film the blur between reality and fantasy begins subtly and then slowly becomes meshed together. My favourite scene is when Jonas is with his family in the supermarket. As they move through the aisles, he is drifting further and further away from himself into a daydream where everything is wonderful and magical. His work colleagues, his wife and the truth are being left behind. Until reality catches up that is anyway.
It isn’t necessarily a story that really interests me, yet it is so well told by the way of the acting and how it has been put together. It is not too otherworldly, but there is a deep intensity that draws the viewer into this world and the character’s mental state which makes it compulsive watching.
Bornedal is able to tap into the viewers emotions and feelings through his quite instinctual way of telling this story using different textures that are slightly on the bizarre side – yet work. From the way the film has been shot, to the use of sound and music this is a very well told story despite the rather bizarre storyline.
It doesn’t have the humour of Nightwatch and it is all a little over the top for me personally. Everything about it I think is very well done and and I believed in Jonas’ character for the most part. The trouble I find in storylines which are based around a lie that has got out of control, is that I find it difficult really to sympathise with the main character. They willingly manipulated themselves into that situation and then it becomes all stressful when they realise they can’t get out of it. Jonas is quite a likeable and sympathetic guy at least to begin with – but in the end he made a severely injured and traumatised woman believe he was her boyfriend.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy stories where the main character is not all that likeable or where there is a fine line between the two, it’s just that I didn’t really find myself feeling either way for Jonas at the end. He was pathetic. I don’t really like pathetic characters.
However, the film is still engaging despite not finding the storyline particularly thrilling. It’s a story well told and for that, I enjoyed it and hope to see more films directed by Ole Bordedal in the future.
Part of Caroline’s World Series 2012 Challenge and Richard’s Foreign Film Festival 2012 Challenge. Filed under Danish.
Tags: Anders W. Berthelsen, Just Another Love Story, Kærlighed på film, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Ole Bornedal, Rebecka Hemse
