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? 

No Time to Die (2021) - Cinema's most beloved franchise commits harakiri

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Daniel Craig a.k.a. James Bond has turned left on this poster for Cary Joji Fukunaga's No Time to Die

James Bond has retired from MI6 to work for CIA and live more leisurely. But when old pal Felix Leiter urges Bond to return to locate a kidnapped scientist with a potentially world-threatening bio-weapon, he picks up the baton yet again.

No Time to Die is written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade (Casino Royale (2006), both), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag (2016-19)) and great Californian filmmaker, co-writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Sin Nombre (2009)). It is the 25th in the Bond franchise and star Daniel Craig's (Saint-Ex (1996)) 5th and last turn as the British spy.

Expectations have run sky-high for this film, the most eagerly anticipated major release that has been pushed out several times by the China Virus pandemic, arriving unusually long 6 years since Bond's last outing in Spectre (2015).

Unfortunately there's much to regret about the film, although many (critics included) seem to be so starved for a major theatrical delivery that they are bulldozing over its many weaknesses. The longest Bond film to date, the film may be said to be this egregiously long because it takes a regular Bond film and then slaps a drama on top of it. Any Bond movie is to be evaluated against the legacy going before it, and how it ranks according to franchise-specific metrics. This film had a troubled production (read below for details) and attempts to mosey out of many 007 traditions and do something new, even as it does very traditional things in the directly following scene.

SPOILER The opening scenes are a long, unusual backstory that's not about Bond, which is unheard of. Then followed by romantic drama scenes and then finally the action-packed sensation that is the traditional Bond opening scene. This naturally takes a while, since it is essentially three opening scenarios instead of just one. (Spectre had a terrific, vivid action-packed Mexico City-set opening sensation of the traditional breed back in 2015.) Billie Eilish's opening credit title song is perhaps the worst ever created for a Bond film; slow, unmelodious and depressing, a song few if any will ever want to listen to outside of the film experience, playing to traditionally stylish credits.

The filmmakers obviously want to try to clean up their franchise and embrace the times, which may very well result in an unrecognizable Bond the next time around. SPOILER In this chapter, Bond is deeply in love with the same woman from the previous film, played by Léa Seydoux (Midnight in Paris (2011)), who has given birth to their daughter, (another first). So now family man Bond collaborates with three young women agents, including Lashana Lynch (Powder Room (2013)), who by the way has taken over his 007 agent number, and gay tech and gadget expert Q in his world peace efforts. This is getting very, very far indeed from the glamorous, escapist, violence and sex-based male fantasy that Ian Fleming originally created with the Bond character and universe. My patience for this 'modernization' (or rather, liberal scrubbing) of the 007 universe is thinning fast.

Craig is terrifically watchable as usual, and among the supporting cast David Dencik (Gentlemen (2014)) injects humor into almost every second he is on-screen as the kidnapped scientist Obruchev, and Jeffrey Wright (Hold the Dark (2018)) is warm as Leiter, but no-one else really makes interesting turns. No Time to Die is over-long by three quarters of an hour to an hour, depending on how hard you look at it. This is fatal. It isn't so much edited as it is allowing excesses in different directions, resulting in a film with five villains (besides Dencik and Billy Magnussen (The Big Short (2015)), there's Christoph Waltz (She (2001)), Dali Benssalah (A Faithful Man (2018)) and Rami Malek (Papillon (2017)), all disfigured) and countless long dialog scenes, most of them not good enough to justify their portions of the film.

There are thankfully still rousing action scenes and stunts that pull one from the stupor of these problems and raise the pulse for the best periods of No Time to Die, but this is still a Bond film that belongs with the lowest-rated third portion of the large body of Bond work. SPOILER Worst of all, however, may be the completely horrible ending, in which Bond gets blown up on the bio-weapon island, a new first that is completely out of tune with the entire Bond fantasy and legacy and seems a desperate ploy from filmmakers that have seen Superman die in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and gone, 'we can do that too'. It isn't dramatically satisfying, because it disregards the entire Fleming-created fantasy universe (and its fans), and revitalizing 007 with a new actor after this can almost only go wrong after these many missteps in No Time to Die, as it will either alienate original fans even more or anger the left-leaning howling choir, who seemingly won't rest happily before a lesbian, Muslim, African 007 solves the climate crisis as Bond, (while raising a litter of multi-colored kids). Take it or (rather) leave it.

Related posts:

Bond franchise: Spectre (2015) - Mendes' second Bond delivers 
Skyfall (2012) - Mendes elevates a slickly produced modern Bond to thrilling heights 
Die Another Day (2002) - Tamahori makes a thrilling, grand piece of Bond escapism 

GoldenEye (1995) - Brosnan arrives in Campbell's dumb Bond mess 
A View to a Kill (1985) or, Once a Gentleman, Always a Gentleman! 
For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Glen debuts with wacky, action-packed Roger Moore Bond

Top 10: Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - Connery's last Bond adventure is a colorful romp 

Goldfinger (1964) - The 007 template gets perfected in fabulously entertaining third spectacle 
From Russia with Love (1963) - Several remarkable elements make Young's 2nd Bond an enduring classic  
Dr. No (1962) - Bond # 1 is one attractive package

Cary Joji Fukunaga: True Detective - season 1 (2014) - Darkness probed somewhat shallowly in strong crime show with Harrelson in one of his career's best performances (co-creator)

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 301 mil. $

Box office: 460.4 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[No Time to Die premiered 28 September (London, England and Switzerland) and runs 163 minutes. John Hodge and Danny Boyle were hired to write and direct the film but left due to creative differences in 2018, delaying the production. Craig was reportedly paid 25 mil. $ for his performance. It was he who requested the Waller-Bridge be hired to rewrite the script and add to its female characters and humor. Shooting took place from March - December 2019 in Norway, Jamaica, England, including London, Scotland, Italy and the Faroe Islands. Composer Dan Romer was replaced with Hans Zimmer due to creative differences during post production, the first time this has ever happened on a Bond film. The first of three release moves due to the China Virus pandemic cost 66 mil. $ additionally lost on marketing. Each month after that reportedly incurred another 1 mil. $ in interest charges. The massive costs led MGM to negotiate with Apple and Netflix about selling the film to them for VoD, but their 600-850 mil. $ asking price was too steep for the companies, who were reportedly offering no more than 400 mil. $. The film opened #1 to a 55.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it fell to #2 in its 2nd weekend and has grossed 111.7 mil. $ to date. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets are the UK, remarkable not far behind the US with 94.2 mil. $ and Germany with 46.2 mil. $. The film is opening in China 29 October and in Australia 11 November. It will need to gross at least 300 mil. $ more in order to go in the black. Fukunaga is returning with 3 episodes of miniseries Masters of the Air. Craig returns in Knives Out 2 (2022). No Time to Die is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of No Time to Die?

Men & Chicken/Mænd & Høns (2015) - Jensen scores with hilarious cinema bizarro original

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 + Best Comedy of the Year + Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year

 

Star Mads Mikkelsen, holding a chicken, next to a literal egghead on this poster for Anders Thomas Jensen's Men & Chicken

 

A pair of brothers receive from their recently deceased father a video, which explains that he wasn't their real father. On a small island in a decrepit sanatorium their actual closest relatives reside ...

 

Men & Chicken is written and directed by great Danish filmmaker Anders Thomas Jensen (Flickering Lights/Blinkende Lygter (2000)). 

The year's undoubtedly strangest film is also Jensen's best to date (in my book), and certainly his most eccentric, which carries a real brilliance in it. Politically incorrect and shamelessly weird, we here spin around themes of brotherhood, the mysteries of biology and genetics, the absurdities of life, - and violence.

The film has a more or less auspicious framing device and an ending that is rather sudden, but its list of winning performances is long: David Dencik (Gentlemen & Gangsters (2016, miniseries)), Mads Mikkelsen (Bleeder (1999)), Bodil Jørgensen (Se min Kjole (2009)), Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Sprængfarlig Bombe (2006)), Nicolas Bro (Beast (2011)) and Søren Malling (Karlas Kabale (2007)) are all stark raving mad and absolutely wonderful in the film. It also has outstanding production design and an excellent score by Frans Bak (Albert (2015)) and Jeppe Kaas (That Time of Year/Den Tid på Året (2018)).

Men & Chicken is bizarro and quotable to an incredible extent; an absolute favorite.

 

Related posts:

Anders Thomas Jensen: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

The Salvation (2014) - Classic western yarn meets Danish dynamite (co-writer)
Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012) - Bier strikes gold with Italy-set romcom (co-writer)
In a Better World/Hævnen (2010) - Bier's Big Moral Drama lives on its actors' performances (co-writer)
Sprængfarlig Bombe (2006) - The two Jensens' satire is unrefined but hilarious (writer) 
Murk/Mørke (2005) or, Shutter Jutland (co-writer)

The Green Butchers/De Grønne Slagtere (2003) - Great performances in Jensen's hilarious morbid comedy 
Open Hearts/Elsker Dig for Evigt (2002) - Bier's excruciating Dogme chamber drama (writer)

Grev Axel (2001) - Frödin and Gråbøl pull laughter from 18th century-set crazy-comedy (writer) 

The King Is Alive (2000) - Levring's trying desert theatrics (co-writer) 

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here 

 

Cost: Reportedly 36 mil. DKK, approximately 5.66 mil. $

Box office: 4.7 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.83 times its cost)

[Men & Chicken was released 5 February (Denmark) and runs 104 minutes. Shooting took place in Funen, Denmark, and in Germany. The film opened #79 to a 2k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #43 and in 11 theaters (different weeks) and grossed a measly 30k $ (0.6 % of the total gross). The film was a hit in its main production country Denmark, where it scored Jensen's biggest opening weekend yet and became the year's 2nd highest-grossing local film, selling 351,632 tickets, behind Klovn Forever, coming to 4.3 mil. $ (91.5 %). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 245k $ (5.2 %) and the Netherlands with 113k $ (2.4 %). The film won 3/10 Robert awards (Denmark's Oscar). Jensen returns with Retfærdighedens Ryttere (2020). Mikkelsen returned in Rihanna: Bitch Better Have My Money (2015, music video), Hannibal (2013-15) and theatrically in Doctor Strange (2016); Dencik in Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015). Men & Chicken is certified fresh at 83 % with a 6.81/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Men & Chicken?

A Soap/En Soap (2006) - P. Christensen's great melodrama debut

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+ Best Copenhagen Movie of the Year + Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Best Melodrama of the Year

The delicious, pink poster for Penille Fischer Christensen's A Soap

QUICK REVIEW:

In a block in Nordvest, Copenhagen, Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm (Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012))) moves into a flat atop Veronica (David Dencik (Daisy Diamond (2007))), a pre-op transgender person, and the two gradually get closer and start to attract each other.

A Soap, the feature debut of great Danish co-writer-director Pernille Fischer Christensen (Someone You Love/En Du Elsker (2014)), is a really good, deeply melancholic film. It seeks boundaries and at times may make you uncomfortable. By demonstratively relegating a melodrama to us, using narration, the film transcends its earthbound base. A Soap, in a sense, shows us that life is a bagatelle, - a soap.
Christensen co-wrote with Kim Fupz Aakeson (In Order of Disappearence/Kraftidioten (2014)).

Related posts:

 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

David Dencik in Pernille Fischer Christensen's A Soap

 In lieu of a trailer for the film, which isn't on Youtube currently, here's a trailer for a more recent Fischer film, A Family/En Familie (2010) (which is far from the quality of A Soap) with English subtitles

Cost: 1.5 mil. $ 
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty (but looks like a huge flop)
[A Soap was released April 7 (Denmark) and runs 104 minutes. At the Berlin Film Festival, the film won the Grand Jury Silver Bear Award and the Best First Feature Film Award. At the Danish Bodil awards, the film won the Best Danish Film of the Year award as well as the Best Actress Award for Dyrholm, her third up to that point. 29,060 paid admission (accounting for approximately 0.3 mil. $) to A Soap in its native Denmark, which is so few that it should likely count as a huge flop theatrically. The international figures available, from the US (where it played in 2 theaters for 8 weeks, making 4k $), Brazil, Mexico and Portugal, add 145k $ to the number, still firmly setting the film in the huge flop category. 1,649 Rotten Tomatoes users have given A Soap an average 3.6/5 rating.]

What do you think of A Soap?

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) - Alfredson's heavily plotted, dreary spy hunt

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Gary Oldman straightens his glasses as the lead spy on the poster for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

QUICK REVIEW:

Once in the Cold War, Mr. Smiley is frozen out of the intelligence Circus in London, only to be recruited again to find and root out the Soviet mole that plagues the very same institution.

Good performances by Gary Oldman (Lawless (2012)), Mark Strong (John Carter (2012)) and David Dencik (The Homesman (2014)) improve but do not save this unnecessarily knobbly told intelligence thriller, the second adaptation, following the same-titled 1979 BBC mini-series, of John Le Carré's (The Russia House (1989)) 1974 novel. Adapted by Bridget O'Connor (Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution (2007)), who sadly passed away during production, and her husband Peter Straughan (Frank (2014)).
Aesthetically this version, by Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In/Låt den Rätte Komma In (2008)) in his English-language debut, gorges on the period's ugliest, most color-deprived misery, just like the BBC series did. Only this new Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has a little more blood and higher pace than the dragging show had. I was also frustrated that there is no clear indices of the year that the plot takes place in.
Ultimately, I think Alfredson's film is another rather dull cinematic round based on Carré material; this one is excessively esoteric as well as severely unattractive due to its asceticism.

Watch the great trailer for the film here, which makes it look exceedingly exciting

Cost: 21 mil. $
Box office: 80.6 mil. $
= Big hit
[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was tremendously successful in its native UK, (though it is, in fact, a UK-German-French co-production), where it made 14 mil. £ and stayed #1 for three consecutive weeks. It also made a handsome 24.1 mil. $ (30 % of the total gross) in North America. The film was also nominated for three Oscars, for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score (Alberto Iglesias (The Constant Gardner (2005))) and Best Actor (Oldman), winning none.]

What do you think of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy?

Brotherhood/Broderskab (2009) - Neo-Nazi men fall in love

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Thure Lindhardt on the poster for Nicolo Donato's Brotherhood

QUICK REVIEW:

Brotherhood is a Danish film about two neo-Nazis, Lars and Jimmy, who fall in love, much against their wishes and beliefs, and have to deal with the fatal consequences.
Brotherhood gets 4 small hearts for the good forces involved in it and for the story's implied provocation to raise healthy debate.

Thure Lindhardt and David Dencik plays the two neo-Nazis who fall in love

Director Nicolo Donato (Togetherness, short (2007)) totally disregards the inherent, comical values in the story, and perhaps because of this, several of the scenes are involuntarily comical in their awkwardness. Comical, because the two stupidly macho and persistently ignorant characters are so baffled by the occurrence. They reminded me, to use a morbid metaphor, of strong bulls, who walk around dazed and confused after having their heads chopped off.
Nicolas Bro (Murk/Mørke (2005)) is great as the group leader in the German car, and the dangerous relationship becomes increasingly risky and exciting towards the end.
Brotherhood uses some clichés and makes mistakes along the way, but was talked about for a period upon its release and is a decent, dramatic romance.
Donato is busy at the moment finishing a documentary about Danish singer-songwriter Søren Huss, entitled S. Lost and Found, and has also been writing on the coming Danish film with Kim Bodnia, August.

Homosexual love and racism collide in Nicolo Donato's Brotherhood. Watch the trailer here

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of Brotherhood?
Can you name some better films of doomed gay love?