Stolen Spring/Det Forsømte Forår (1993) or, The Lost Days of School

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Copenhagen Movie of the Year + Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best Youth Movie of the Year

Frits Helmuth in formidable figure on a poster for Peter Schrøder's Stolen Spring

QUICK REVIEW:

Stolen Spring is a story framed around a reunion dinner held by a now aging class of men, who were once boys in the same authoritative boys school. Here their time went by, year after year. Perhaps their best time.

This adaptation of Hans Scherfig's (Idealists/Idealister (1945)) classic Danish novel of the same name from 1940 is a lovely, melancholic film. The original Danish title means 'the neglected spring'. It presents a sometimes nostalgic look back at the boys' lives at the Metropolitan School in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, partially under the reign of the relentless, sadistic Associate Professor Blomme.
Frits Helmuth (Flickering Lights/Blinkende Lygter (2000)) captures the role most convincingly, and Thomas Villum Jensen (Just a Girl/Kun en Pige (1995)) is also very good as young Edvard Ellerstrøm, perhaps his best acting performance to date.
The film is directed by Peter Schrøder (Lotto (2006)) and co-written by Schrøder, Peter Bay (Vildbassen (1994)), Dirk Brüel (Truly Human/Et Rigtigt Menneske (2001), cinematographer) and Tom Hedegaard (The Moelleby Affair/Affæren i Mølleby (1976)). The plot in the film has moved forward about 50 years compared to the novel, and the narrative has also been fixed more on a single character, whereas the novel is known as a collective novel because it presents its story through the eyes of several characters collectively.
Schrøder has not directed a film since the rather disappointing Lotto, but he is still active as an actor, at the moment in the second season of Dicte (2013-).

 

Related post:

 

1993 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Frits Helmut and Thomas Villum Jensen both reach career summits with their performances in Peter Schrøder's Stolen Spring

In lieu of a trailer, here's a scene from the film of one of Blomme's classes, unfortunately without English subtitles

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[However, Stolen Spring is counted as a box office hit in its native Denmark, where 400k paid admission to see it. Helmuth won both the Danish Robert and Bodil prizes as Best Male Actor, and Jesper Langberg (King's Game/Kongespil (2004)) won the Bodil prize for Best Supporting Actor.]

What do you think of Stolen Spring?
And Schrøder's other films as a director?