After the Wedding: Surprise guest
INFO
After the Wedding
3 stars. Directed by Susanne Bier. Stars Mads Mikkelsen, Rolf Lassgård. Rated R. Opens Fri., May 11. At United Artists Tara Cinema.
Hype and perceptions of "heat" don't just influence the careers of individual actors or filmmakers, but can shape the ups and downs of different countries' film industries. Currently the moviemaking nations generating the most worldwide buzz are probably Mexico and South Korea, thanks to bravura talents such as Guillermo del Toro and Park Chan-wook.
They've probably stolen some of Denmark's thunder, even though the Danes have one of the most lively and passionate film communities on Earth. A particularly vibrant and confrontational generation emerged in the late 1990s, loosely unified by the so-called "Dogme 95 Vow of Chastity," under which filmmakers sought to avoid cinematic artifice by shooting in natural light with handheld cameras while avoiding contrivances such as special effects or period costume dramas. Led by Breaking the Waves' Lars von Trier, the Dogme 95 filmmakers may not have been any more "pure" than other directors but reliably produced nervy, arresting work.
Having dabbled in Dogme, many of the directors have moved on, such as Susanne Bier, who crafted the compellingly soap-operatic Open Hearts under the Dogme restrictions. Most recently Bier secured a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination for After the Wedding, a more conventionally made film that shares the spark and energy of the Dogme films, as well as those films' surprising fondness for melodramatic plot points.
Bier reunites with Open Hearts' Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Jacob, a driven, dedicated teacher at a broke, overcrowded orphanage in India. A soft-spoken philanthropist and surrogate father to one of the orphans, Jacob also proves obstinate and harshly judgmental about anyone not as self-sacrificing as he is, particularly his fellow Europeans. If Mikkelsen looks familiar, it's because he played the villainous Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. With his sunken eyes and receding chin, Mikkelsen has an implosive intensity, which makes Jacob's infrequent smiles seem all the more hard-won.
Very much against his will, Jacob returns to his native Denmark to pitch a super-rich businessman named Jorgen (Rolf Lassgård) interested in keeping the school financially viable. With Indian music incongruously playing against the muted Danish cityscape, After the Wedding flirts with fish-out-of-water comedy worthy of a satirist like Evelyn Waugh. Jacob's hotel suite, for example, dwarfs his classroom in India.
Lassgård makes Jorgen more than a conventional captain of industry, although he conveys the entitlement of someone accustomed to issuing orders. Early scenes establish him as deceptively down-to-earth, whether he's reading to his twin sons, romancing his wife, Helene (Sidse Babett Knudsen), in the bath or helping his mother play online poker. His favorite song appears to be "It's Raining Men," yet despite his nice-guy façade, his penchant for fiery tantrums hints at an inner turmoil.
Jorgen insists that Jacob attend the wedding of his daughter, Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen), and upon arriving at the small chapel, Jacob realizes that he had an old relationship with Helene, and may have closer ties to Jorgen's family than anyone realized. Was the invitation a coincidence or an ambush arranged by Helene or Jorgen? After the Wedding deserves credit for keeping the characters' reactions raw and credible when a secret comes out. The script doesn't contrive thin excuses to keep revelations under wraps, and the whole cast provides moving performances, even when the plot borders with turning into a "Dynasty"-style soap.
After the Wedding indulges in some portentous symbolism as Bier frequently zooms in for extreme close-ups on the characters' eyes. Like the hunting trophies on Jorgen's walls and the deer on his estate, the imagery provides more heavy-handed foreshadowing than seems appropriate, as if the film could turn into a violent revenge flick when the script's intentions aren't nearly so lurid. The device pays off in such scenes as when Helene receives a piece of news and we only see her rapid eye movement as she attempts to process the shock.
More often in After the Wedding, Bier displays a sure, spontaneous hand with the actors and sets a crisp pace, giving the film an aim-for-the-gut accessibility that seems characteristic of Danish cinema. For all the avant-garde ideals of Dogme 95, Danish filmmakers such as Bier never want to alienate their audiences, no matter what language they speak.
