Down On the Earth

This time, it's a trio of Danish films, with Just Another Love Story, Häxan, and Vampyr.


Just Another Love Story
Directed by Ole Bornedal, starring Anders W. Berthelsen, Rebecka Hemse, Dejan Cukic, Charlotte Fich, and Nikolaj Lie Kaas.

Jonas (Berthelsen) is an average family man. He has a wife, Mette (Fich); two kids (one boy, one girl), and is bored with his very existence. However, his boredom is left behind when a car accident he witnesses offers him a way out.

Following the accident, Jonas decides to visit the driver, Julia (Hemse) in the hospital. Since he is not a relative, the hospital admissions staff turns him away. An undeterred Jonas goes to the floor Julia's room is on, and pretends to be her boyfriend, Sebastian (Kaas). Jonas/Sebastion is quickly accepted as such by the hospital's staff, Julia's family, and Julia herself, who has gone temporarily blind and suffered memory loss.

Julia and her family soon welcome Jonas/Sebastion into their fold, providing Jonas a reprieve from, and possibly a way out of, his tedious life. Unfortunately, things turn unpleasant, as his detective friend Frank (Cukic) tries to persuade Jonas to stop the affair, and Mette begins to suspect the infidelity. Things become further complicated when Frank tells Jonas that the real Sebastion was reportedly shot dead prior to Julia's accident. Jonas must choose whether he wants to risk it all to be with the mysterious Julia.

Just Another Love Story is an excellent neo-noir. The acting and direction highlight the story of the morally conflicted Jonas and his struggle to keep his footing in a world that is spiraling out of his control. Directed Bornedal has crafted a fine thriller, that stands out as more than just another noir.


Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen.

Häxan chronicles the history of witchcraft. Through a series of vignettes, it demonstrates the attempts of the misinformed and uneducated in their quests to eradicate what was perceived as witchcraft. Christensen's film is part documentary, part horror, and part morality play. While fictional, the film is presented as fact, which allows Christensen himself to narrate the film in documentary style.

Though Häxan is a work of fiction, Christensen's use of psychology to explain away the thought of witchcraft as an affliction is, for a non-academic film on the subject of witchcraft, intriguing. Häxan is an interesting film that manages to be entertaining and thought provoking; while also possessing darkly intelligent humor.

Vampyr
Directed by Carl Th. Dryer, starring Julian West (Nicolas de Gunzburg), Rena Mandel, Jan Hieronimko, Albert Bras, Sybille Schmitz, Henriette Gerard, and Maurice Schutz.

If you've read Bram Stoker's Dracula, seen Nosferatu, or seen one of the hundreds of adaptations of either, then you know the basic story of Carl Th. Dryer's Vampyr. What sets Vampyr apart from those other films is not the well-known story, but Dryer's direction.

With editing techniques and camera tricks, Dryer's vampyric tale rises above the horror norm. Instead of relying on the overused staples of the horror genre, Dryer created a film whose terror comes from a muddled, dream-like state. The result is a film stylistically more akin to the works of Welles or the La Nouvelle Vague, than the horror films of the time.


Next time, Grigori Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier, and Park Dae-min's Private Eye.