Kun en Pige (1995) - Schrøder's lavish Lise Nørgaard biopic

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A uniformed young woman caught in a sea of bright dilemmas (or so it appears) on this poster for Peter Schrøder's Kun en Pige

The childhood and early adult life of Danish cultural icon Lise Nørgaard as the daughter of a wholesaler in province town Roskilde is laid out: Her passion for writing and being free to make her own decisions, her rebellion against the time and the consequences it had for her.

 

Kun en Pige is written by Peter Bay (Kaj's Fødselsdag (1990)) and Jørgen Kastrup (Vi Er Både Rigtige og Kloge (1975)), adapting Lise Nørgaard's (Stjernevej (1981)) same-titled 1992 autobiography and her follow-up De Sendte en Dame (1993), and directed by Peter Schrøder (Det Forsømte Forår (1993)). The Danish title translates to, 'just a girl'.

For a Danish film, Kun en Pige is an enormous production, - think The Godfather (1972) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984), - but Nørgaard's story has trouble supporting that weight. The film is incredibly long and first and foremost of local-national interest. Furthermore there are loose ends to the plot (the polyps; the chilling dream of Germany), but Kun en Pige is nevertheless a worthwhile picture.

Periods of it recall Nørgaard's Roskilde chronicle, Danish cultural cornerstone Matador (1978-82), (which may tire some Matador fans), but it is handsomely and cinematically done; the crew deserve acknowledgment for the skilled lighting and many fine images, (cinematography by Dirk Brüel (Flugten (1973)).)

Waage Sandøe (Krøniken (2004-07)), Kristian Halken (Speed Walking/Kapgang (2014)), Amalie Dollerup (Badehotellet (2013-)), Inge Sofie Skovbo (Sunes Familie (1997)) and Puk Sharbau (Terribly Happy/Frygtelig Lykkelig (2008)) all give good performances. The protagonist's persistent bouts of rage and her angry contrariness may wear on one's patience, but the film still has a lot of good to offer.

 

Related post:

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

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 28 mil. DKK, approximately 3.85 mil. $

Box office: Approximately 2.57 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.66 times its cost)

[Kun en Pige was released 15 December (Denmark) and runs 170 minutes. The budget was reportedly the biggest ever for a Danish film at the time. Shooting took place in Denmark. It sold impressive 456,718 tickets in Denmark, the film's only recorded release market, where it was the highest-grossing film of the year, which was nevertheless far from enough to recoup the big cost of production. (The average ticket prize in Denmark was 41 DKK in 1995.) The film won 4/4 Robert nominations (Denmark's Oscar). Schrøder returned with Nikolaj og Julie (2003, TV-series) and theatrically with Lotto (2006). Scharbau returned in Bryggeren (1997, TV-series) and theatrically in Afmagt (1998). 387 IMDb users have given Kun en Pige a 6.4/10 average rating.]

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Tid til Forandring (2004) - Everyone's wrong and Svendsen doesn't have ANY answers

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The film's central characters stand around in the bottom of this sorry DVD cover scan of the poster for Lotte Svendsen's Tid til Forandring

Danish director Lotte Svendsen's (Royal Blues (1997))  third feature is a hysterically funny black comedy about four circles of people whose lives intersect over the course of a few days. Here's a short presentation:

 
Inge quits her job and puts down her dog, when she realizes she needs to take charge over her own life. Her psychologist Erik is responsible for that change, but in his own life, he struggles with alcohol addiction and a wife who is obsessed with their home. One day, he meets Svend, an old friend who should have been dead a decade ago from a terminal illness, but who is instead busy putting up illegal posters for his socialist debate night. Nearby lives the middle-aged, selfish loner, Jens, who props up an old friend as a 'handicapped brother' in order to get sympathy sex with a blonde model from the area.

 
That area, by the way, is 2900 Hellerup, as rock star/actor Peter Belli (Koko-di Koko-da (2019)) reminds Jens twice in an excellent supporting role. And the portrayal of Denmark's most exclusive zip code is (predictably) not flattering.
But the script is amazingly funny; Svendsen co-wrote it with her writing partner Elith Nulle Nykjær (Bamses Billedbog (1989, TV-series)). One bizarre, delicate scene follows the next, and the humor of the piece is as Danish as pastry, so non-Danes are sure not to enjoy it as much. But it certainly should prove interesting.
All of the actors give fine performances in Svendsen's confident direction, although Louise Mieritz (Ditte & Louise (2018)) as a mentally challenged woman is miscast, (and if Svendsen had really meant her criticism of people's unwillingness to get involved with handicapped and the mentally deficient, why didn't she herself get involved by casting one in this part, including them in her own industry so to speak?)
This debacle set aside, I enjoyed watching Waage Sandø (Krummernes Jul (1996, TV-series)) in particular as a red wine imbibing upper class shrink, and Claus Ryskjær (Kampen om den Røde Ko (1987)), Helle Dolleris (Zoomerne (2009)), Dan Zahle (The Rain (2019, TV-series)) as Jens the egomaniac who treats a woman like she's a delicate alien intelligence, and Anne Sofie Espersen (Live fra Bremen (2012-13)) as said woman. Also Kirsten Lehfeldt (Kongeriget (1998-02)) and the two women friends that follows her around are excellent, portraying, clearly, the characters that Svendsen likes the least. In nice supporting roles are also Frank Hvam (Klovn Forever/Clown Forever (2015)) and Jens Andersen (Breeder (2020)).
The film is an excellent presentation of how a Danish satirical dramedy gets its many laughs with apparent ease; through a variety of flawed, unwitting characters interacting.

Some audiences might begin to turn in their seats or twitch their index finger above the stop button, when the movie enters its third act, and it becomes clear that more than one of its main characters are heading into the abyss, (though they still are darkly comedic abysses.)
My main inference with the film is linked to Svendsen's double standard morals in the disabled issue: Normally, it would be silly to hold such things against a director, but in Svendsen's case, her film is so indignant and essentially a humorous protest film, (the Danish title literally translates to 'time for change'.) In this case, where she blames most all of her characters for their own miserable lives, and in the meantime pulls a plug on self realization thinking and people's basic capabilities for change, something like that has to be held against the film.
Svendsen clearly has the least antipathy, or rather the most sympathy (?), with the lower class in the film, as has also been apparent in her earlier films, Royal Blues (1997) and Bornholms Stemme (1999). Personally, I would have liked the film perhaps even more, if the upper class had held some of the answers, and the lower class instead had been depicted as stupid and degraded, because this would have been a novelty in Danish films The lower class hero is the standard, and a status quo in this case doesn't earn extra points.
The problem with Svendsen's story is that it leaves no answers behind, or even hints of answers, but just shakes in the wind with indignant resentment of our Danish ways, and then leaves us, - and that is too easy. And had Tid til Forandring not made me laugh as many times as it did, I would have slashed a heart from its review for this hypocrisy. 





 

Svendsen later was appointed film consultant in the Danish Film Institute and here talks about that job

Cost: Unknown, but likely at least 5 mil. DKK, approximately 0.81 mil. $

Box office: Around 2.9 mil. DKK, approximately 0.47 mil. $

=  Uncertain but likely a huge flop (projected return of around 0.48 times its cost)

[Tid til Forandring was released 13 August (Denmark) and runs 94 minutes. Shooting took place in Denmark, including Copenhagen. The film only sold 38,059 tickets in Denmark, its only market with a general release, coming to 2.9 mil. DKK at a ticket prize of 77 DKK. Svendsen returned with Max (2007, TV-series) and theatrically with Max Pinlig/Max Embarrasing (2008). Dolleris returned in Oskar & Josefine (2005); Sandø in Krummerne - Så Er Det Jul Igen (2006) and Lehfeldt in Solkongen (2005). 173 IMDb users have given Tid til Forandring a 5.3/10 average rating.]

 

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