Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Reconstruction (2003) - Luminous Bonnevie in Boe's striking Copenhagen love/mystery debut

8/16/2019

Reconstruction (2003) - Luminous Bonnevie in Boe's striking Copenhagen love/mystery debut

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Art Film of the Year + Best Copenhagen Movie of the Year + Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year

The stars meet romantically on this beautiful poster for Christoffer Boe's Reconstruction, which undeniably aestheticizes smoking cigarettes

A man in a relationship suddenly falls for an unknown woman named Aimee and follows her, finding that she is also already entangled. But their connection is powerful all the same.

Reconstruction is written by Mogens Rukov (Elise (1985)) and great debuting Danish co-writer/director Christoffer Boe (Beast (2011)). A salute should go out to Boe for injecting a strong dose of Parisian elegance into Danish cinema with this delectable love mystery. And yet Reconstruction still seems so Copenhagen and Nordic still.
The film has a sommelier restaurant scene that may be putting on airs a bit, and the drama at times seems somewhat secondary and diffuse, - but it gets a renaissance later in the emotional finale.
Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Just Another Love Story/Kærlighed på Film (2007)), Krister Henriksson (Faithless/Trolösa (2000)) and Maria Bonnevie (I Am Dina (2002)) give brilliant performances, and especially Bonnevie is fantastic.
Reconstruction features innovative, inspiring photography by Manuel Alberto Claro (Nymphomaniac: Vol. I & II (2013)) on Super16, masked to CinemaScope format in editing. It is a hard-to-explain film of existential fear stemming from a story of the construction of a love story that evolves into a classical mystery. Somehow the unlikely thing happens and this all comes together, making Reconstruction one of the first highly distinctive and memorable Danish films of the new millennium.

Related post:

Christoffer Boe: Allegro (2005) or, His Past Was Lost in a Copenhagen Zone!

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a scene from the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Around 1 mil. $
= Uncertain - but likely a huge flop
[Reconstruction premiered 18 May (Cannes Film Festival, France) and runs 91 minutes. Shooting took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. The film enjoyed an extensive release of foreign markets and festivals for a Danish film. It sold 51,523 tickets in its production country Denmark, not bad for an art film, raking in approximately 515k $ (51.5 % of the total gross). It opened #81 to a 13k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it never rose in rank but spread to 9 theaters and grossed 73k $ (7.3 %). North America was the 5th largest market; the largest was Denmark, followed by Argentina with 113k $ (11.3 %) and Russia with 90k $ (9 %). If the film was made on a probable low budget of around 2 mil. $, it would rank as a huge flop. It won 2 minor prizes in Cannes, was nominated for a European Film award and won 2/6 Robert nominations (Denmark's Oscar). Boe returned with Visions of Europe (2004, segment) and feature-wise with Allegro (2005). Kaas returned in Dogville: The Pilot (2003, short) and theatrically in Brothers/Brødre (2004); Bonnevie in Let's Play House/Mamma Pappa Barn (2003). Reconstruction is fresh at 72 % with a 6.29/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

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Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

8/16/2019

Reconstruction (2003) - Luminous Bonnevie in Boe's striking Copenhagen love/mystery debut

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

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