Perhaps nothing better illustrates the divide between American and European cinema than the fact that the most recent Academy Award winner for best foreign-language film is considered by some critics in her home country to be “too commercial.” To the North American viewer, Danish director Susanne Bier’s films come as a revelation. Her intimate dramas are so involving, you don’t even notice when you’re swept away on their intense emotional charge. “In a Better World” won the Oscar in a group crowded with talent, beating the powerful “Incendies” and the Javier Bardem drama “Biutiful.” As it opens, it looks like it will be a message movie about a Scandinavian doctor doing good in impoverished Africa. Instead, it turns out to be a shocking and moving film about the trials of childhood and how they continue as we grow older, but not always wiser.
| On screen |
| ‘In a Better World’ |
| 4 out of 5 stars |
| Stars: William Johnk Nielsen, Markus Rygaard, Mikael Persbrandt |
| Director: Susanne Bier |
| Rated: R for violent and disturbing content involving preteens, and for language |
| Running time: 113 minutes |
The doctor, played Mikael Persbrandt, returns home to Denmark and a wife who can barely speak to him and a son whose embrace hides his suffering. Young Elias (Markus Rygaard) is being bullied by the school psychopath. But he’s saved — in a sense — by Christian (William Johnk Nielsen), who’s just arrived back in Denmark after the death of his mother in London.
Christian seems cold, but his exterior hides a deep sense of justice. He cannot stand to see evil done without its perpetrators punished. Watching a horse being beaten on the street drove Friedrich Nietzsche mad. Christian is more calculating, though perhaps no less dangerous — especially when he accuses the bullied boy’s father of accepting victimization himself.
“In a Better World” is partly in English, partly in Danish. Don’t let that keep you from seeing this disturbing film that strikes at the very heart of how we, each in our own way, assert our humanity. The young actors at the center of this film are astonishing in their ability to portray the universal pain of growing up, while making their characters utterly their own. It’s hard to imagine a film like this being called “commercial.” It’s too bad Bier’s impressive body of work doesn’t draw American audiences as it does Danish ones.
