Kysset (2022) - August and Smed reteam for estimable period love drama

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A passionate kiss atop a scene of soldiers on horseback adorn this poster for Bille August's Kysset

Anton is the grown son of a working class home disgraced by his father's disappearance, who wants to redeem the family honor by excelling in the army. In the period leading up to the outbreak of WWI, he befriends a wealthy baron, who sees great promise of the second lieutenant in connection to his young invalid daughter. 

 

Kysset is written by Greg Latter (Night Train to Lisbon (2013)) with Danish master filmmaker, co-writer/director Bille August (In My Life/Honning Måne (1978)) contributing elements. It is an adaptation of Stefan Zweig's (Spring in the Prater/Praterfühlung (1900)) Beware of Pity/Ungeduld des Herzens (1939). The Danish title translates to 'the kiss'.

August reteams with his co-star of his recent long period drama A Fortunate Man/Lykkeper (2018), Esben Smed (Follow the Money/Bedrag (2016-19)), who is again an ideal actor for August's lingering camera and a character-based drama. Where the former film was Smed manifested as a man who lacked humility, which brought him at odds with his peers, Anton of Kysset lacks bravery or assuredness in his feelings. He is caught in debilitating doubt. A doubt that is fascinating and which reflects the film's central theme of whether or not love can or should be based on pity or bad conscience in some cases. Obligation and speculation also comes into play, but it is really the matter of pity and empathy that is the question here. SPOILER In the end Anton fails to take a clear stand and instead causes the baron's daughter Edith to commit suicide due to his cowardice, and he himself goes to war and gets shot dead in an act of foolish heroics (some may say heroic bravery) in the trench war. The film thus ends as a tragedy.

Smed's acting of Anton's doubts, as the whole course of the remainder of his life is suddenly on the table for a relationship that he is not fully convinced about, is supremely palpable. Lars Mikkelsen (The Venus Effect/Venuseffekten (2021)) and David Dencik (Chernobyl (2019, miniseries)) are good as the baron and Dr. Faber, the latter of whom treats Edith despite there being little chance of her ever recovering her ability to walk properly again. Clara Rosager (Before the Frost/Før Frosten (2018)) is fine as the emotional and volatile Edith, who is also difficult because she seems stunted in a teenager's dramatic frame of mind, around the age that her horse accident left her infirm. Sometimes the lines come out of her mouth in a way that feels as if she has practiced them a lot but that they don't really come from her, but it is a matter of actors of different classes (Rosager against Smed), and she does give the character the emotionally high-strung center that she needs.

The film is smaller in scope than A Fortunate Man but highly well-produced, no less powerful and highly enjoyable as a sensitive artist's grown up's drama with full moral and ethical dilemmas of universal grain. 

 

Related posts:

Bille August: 2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess 

A Fortunate Man/Lykke-Per (2018) - Smed is terrific in August's magnificent production, though haunted by miniseries structure 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 33.3 mil. DKK; approximately 4.75 mil. $

Box office: Around 2.2 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[Kysset premiered 15 October (Warsaw Film Festival, Poland) and runs 116 minutes. Shooting took place from August - October 2021 in Hungary and Denmark. The film has so far sold 171,480 tickets in Denmark, its only market in general release, where the film is playing in Biografklub Denmark, meaning that probably at least half of the patrons are only paying half prize for their ticket. This comes to a gross of around 15.4 mil. DKK or 2.2 mil. $ (the average ticket prize set at 120 DKK). The film is not likely to become profitable theatrically. August is in pre-production with 4 films, the first one titled The Emperor of Dreams - Gianni Versace. Smed is returning in 2 TV-series but does not have his theatrical return announced yet; Rosager also returns in 2 TV-series but has no theatrical return announced yet. 131 IMDb users have given Kysset a 6.8/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of Kysset? 

A Fortunate Man/Lykke-Per (2018) - Smed is terrific in August's magnificent production, though haunted by miniseries structure

♥♥♥

+ Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Esben Smed

The sensational romance at the film's heart is the center for this erotic poster for Bille August's A Fortunate Man

Peter Andreas is a young man with an uncommon drive, ambition and contempt for his Christian family, as he takes a small room in Copenhagen in the late 19th century and intensifies his engineer studies, pushing forth a revolutionary project for Jutland.

A Fortunate Man is written by Anders Frithiof August (Key House Mirror/Nøgle Hus Spejl (2015)) and Danish master co-writer/director (and father of his co-writer), Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror/Pelle Erobreren (1987)), adapting the 8 (!) classic, semi-autobiographical Lykke-Per novels (1898-1904) from Henrik Pontoppidan (De Dødes Rige I-II (1917).
A Fortunate Man is a marvelous experience for someone with a penchant for grand period dramas and 19th century adaptations. The production is exquisite, never boastful but impressive and lovely in its portrayal of old Copenhagen, the Danish countrysides as well as trips to Austria and Germany. Falling into this world of yore is a treat.
Esben Smed (Denmark 92/Sommeren '92 (2015)) leads the film impressively. He is great as the complex Peter, whose surroundings name him 'Lykke-Per', meaning a fortune-seeker, a man who is led by his towering ambitions, ruthlessness and arrogance. He is also, perhaps, and at least in his own mind, a genius. And a very handsome character in Smed's figure. He succeeds in making Peter's rise and fall seem probable and natural.
Surrounding Smed is an ensemble of fine Danish actors: Especially joyous is it to have funny-men Tommy Kenter (The Passion of Marie/Marie Krøyer (2012)) and Rasmus Bjerg (Nothing's All Bad/Smukke Mennesker (2010)) in serious roles as patriarchs stunted by youthful passion, but also Elsebeth Steentoft (Small Town Killers/Dræberne fra Nibe (2017)) is formidable as Peter's mother. Good performances also flow from Julie Christiansen (While We Live/Mens Vi Lever (2017)), Tammi Øst (The Woman Who Dreamed About a Man/Kvinden Der Drømte Om en Mand (2010)), Claus Flygare (Danny's Doomsday/Dannys Dommedag (2014)), Jens Albinus (Portland (1996)), Paul Hüttel (1864 (2014), miniseries) and Katrine Rosenthal (Kursk (2018)) SPOILER as the tremendously big-hearted, intelligent Jewish Jacobe, whom Peter seduces and later ditches, when his immature focus shifts back to his Jutlandic roots.
The film is sometimes funny, involving and romantic, SPOILER but it loses its shape, as Peter makes his radical move away from Copenhagen and his betrothed, who, unknown to him, is carrying his child. A Fortunate Man has epic length, but it feels more like a miniseries, as this shift occurs at such a natural place to end a long and fine film. Indeed A Fortunate Man is also envisioned to serve as an elongated miniseries on Danish TV shortly after its theatrical release, and this commercially dictated logic, which broadens the audience and therefore the revenue for the project, doesn't serve the film well. Unfamiliar with Pontoppidan's novels, A Fortunate Man's last act makes us very aware that the story is vast, and that August's wrapping up of it is somewhat haphazard.
SPOILER Peter starts a family in Jutland and abandons them in favor of strange solitude, while managing to gather considerable funds, (we don't learn exactly how.) Smed's attractive, boyish looks also clash somewhat with his seemingly having become much older.
A Fortunate Man is a fine film and treat, not least for Danes, but it should have been a two-parted film, and it is the latter part of the story that seems raced through here, as August speeds up to get to the finishing drone shot of Peter, alone and awaiting death in the 
Jutlandic heath landscape.

Related posts:

2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess

 Watch a trailer for the film here, without English subtitles regrettably

Cost: 55 mil. DKK, approximately 8.6 mil. $
Box office: Unknown - but likely not exceeding 20 mil. DKK yet
= Still uncertain - but so far a theatrical mega-flop
[A Fortunate Man premiered 20 August (Jutland, Denmark) and runs 162 minutes. A newly formed Public Service fund supported the production with 22 mil. DKK. 1 mil. DKK came from Den Vestdanske Filmpulje, requiring some shooting to take place in Fyen. Shooting took place in Denmark, including Copenhagen, and in Austria. The film has been well received in its production country Denmark, where 218k have paid admission to it so far. Unfortunately the film is part of 'Biografklub Danmark', which means that a large portion of the audiences pay only half price for admission. The miniseries version is to be shown on Danish TV2 at a later date. The film is shortlisted as one of three candidates to become the Danish Oscar bid of the year. August is set to return with Danish-Italian The Emperor of Dreams: Gianni Versace and Belgian A War of Their Own, both only announced. Smed returns in Ditte & Louise (2018), Rosenthal in Kursk (2018). 235 IMDb users have given A Fortunate Man a 7.8/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of A Fortunate Man?