At first glance, this movie is full of mad characters. A brain-damaged guy overcaring for animals so much that he kills almost all of his family in a car incident on a trip to a zoo just to save a life of a deer. Afterwards his brother starts to hunt animals and collect their skeletons at his home until he's forced to become a butcher to tame his insane hobby. Then a priest who ate his own wife. And a few other personages with similar deviations...
Nice people aren't they? After a friend of the ex-hunter starts to kill people in order to spice up meat products at their butcher shop, the plot seems to go way far from sanity and common sense. You may begin wondering what the point of the film actually is?
Don't be mistaken here. A popular today (esp. in modern Asian cinema) genre of trash-horror doesn't apply to this movie at all. Neither do bare 'drama' or 'comedy' as specified at IMDb, in my opinion. I'd call it a black Scandinavian comedy. Maybe even a black ironic Scandinavian comedy.
So what's the irony, anyway? As I see it, the message is simple: there's not a single sane person in this world. Everyone is crazy in one way or another. To a smaller or larger degree. And this movie, being an act of art, simply utilizes hyperbole to present the idea.
How could one live in such a crazy society? Watch the movie to see how it resolves. In a nutshell, we just have to put up with the fact and accept people as they are. We should remember that we ourselves can look insane in other people's eyes. And that's OK.
To my surprise, both brothers mentioned above have been played by the same actor - Nikolaj Lie Kaas. I didn't even realize that until I watched the movie and took a look at the film credits. Wonderful performance, in my opinion.
This is an ode to imagination. Kid's imagination, to be precise. Have you ever noticed that children are much more imaginative than adults? Duh! And yet, the way this movie depicts this subject is just brilliant.
The most exciting scene is when Will, the principal character, accidentally watches First Blood (1982) at friend's place, and on a way back home he imagines himself being Rambo running through the fields and "shooting" imaginary creatures all around him! :) Next time he's taken home by a priest, and, while watching at the window from a back seat of the car, he sees imaginary laser beams and cartoon explosions happening by the road. Also, his notebook (a paper one, the movie is set in the beginning of 1980's) is full of drawings which, when turning the pages quickly enough, transform to a moving picture.
Such an extreme level of imagination is possible because kids aren't limited by social norms, moral dogmas, or, after all, by the science itself. The more we educate ourselves, the more often the knowledge we've acquired evidences that there are boundaries in what can be done in reality and what cannot. Growing up, we tend to avoid even thinking of that infeasible stuff.
For instance, take a flying dog, huh? First it appears in Will's drawings. Then Lee, his friend, steals a clay dog, attaches deltaplane's wing to it, and voilà, they've got a dog that can fly for real! What mess that experiment brings in real life is another story, though. :)
While education helps us understand what technically can or can not be done, norms and dogmas, on the other hand, teach us what may not be done [1]. Where do the norms and dogmas come from? You could have guessed already - the religion, where else? Like in my previous review of a short Timothy and the World of Tomorrow (2010), this feature film deals with parents who, being religious, project their rules onto their children. Watching TV is banned, friendship with faithless schoolmates is prohibited. Just constraints, and no way to develop one's creativity.
However, Will's sincere friendship with Lee, their common interest in filming a remake of First Blood together, and finally, his everlasting energy help Will break through the restrictive rules. There's no way to keep a kid away from dreaming!
Since the film depicts 1980's, the soundtrack pleases us with a lot of New Wave music, and tunes by The Cure in particular. Spectacular acting by Bill Milner as Will must be mentioned as well. I've seen him in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010), Mixtape (2009), and he always makes a great performance. This amazing move is not an exception.
A religion sets rules and constraints. On the contrary, imagination and curiosity help break limitations and reveal new possibilities. When the two collide, a conflict is inevitable.
The movie tells a story of a 9 yo boy, Timothy, who dreams about outer space and loves to watch TV news about the Apollo program and the first men on the Moon. His mother, however, is overly religious, and as such mostly disapproves his interest. And the father of the family is too timid to support his son's passion.
When new Indian neighbors settle down across the street, their foreignness, and therefore different religion cannot be left unnoticed by Timmy's mother, and the boy is prohibited from communicating with the new family and their kid of the same age. Staying at home in a room with hammered windows all day long is the least thing a child may want or actually need.
Will Timothy be able to escape from his conservative parents, and how the situation will resolve? Watch the movie to find out!
An artsy guy experiencing insomnia finds inspiration in dreams about naked women's bodies while he works nightshifts in a supermarket. I guess I've just told you the whole storyline in just one sentence. :) Blame me not, since the most interesting part of the movie is in the details, but the story itself is as stupid and absurd as stated above.
Actually, apart from camera work (worth noting that some of it resembles that seen in Vertigo (1958)), there isn't much to mark. Perhaps the most important part is how this movie depicts the process of creating art. An artists has to virtually freeze the time to make out features of a person, a place, a circumstance, or whatever else they want to devote their piece of art to.
While looking through the features, the artist chooses either beautiful and perfect, or bizarre and weird ones. Finally, these features are layered on a "canvas", perhaps undergoing through hyperbolization, metaphorization, or some other sort of transformation. I put the word "canvas" in quotes because the process applies to any form of art actually, be it paintings, literature, or, say, music.
Note that there's also a short version of the movie: Cashback (2004), however, it doesn't carry the same amount of meaning as the full one. Basically it looks simply like a short comedy. Although some people may start with the short film first and consider it as a teaser for the full version (that was my case, actually.)
Unnatural selection doesn't always produce correct results. Some may seem strange, unusual, or even alien enough to filter them out of the society. However, being strong and optimistic helps to keep sane and alive, even if the majority (or just a "selector") thinks you don't belong there. Watch it:
From now on I officially love Technicolor! That's amazing to watch a color movie shot in 1930's. Especially one that depicts a yet earlier period. Looks like the life back then hasn't really been as black&white as we usually see it on photographs from that time, huh? :)
According to the Wikipedia article this technology has started to go mainstream in 1920's, so there's a lot of color movies from the beginning of the XX century. Although many are lost, those remaining are surely must watch!
And regarding the story itself, let's not forget what Mark Twain said about his book:
Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.
Ramón, the protagonist of the story, has to change schools every year because of his father's job relocations. To bear that he sets three simple rules: 1) don't fight; 2) don't snitch; 3) don't cry. The rules help him avoid troubles, but also reduce the chance of befriending his schoolmates. Odd and sad, isn't it?
When his family moves to Southern Spain, it seems like they're going to stay there for much longer than just a year, and Ramón decides that the time has come to make some friends. But what does he know about friendship? Not much aside from occasional interaction with his hero, an imaginary1 Native Indian warrior, who guides him through tough situations and helps establish relations with his new schoolmates.
Actually, there are heroes in real life as well. Spanish and Latin American coming of age movies frequently mix in political issues in children's lives (Machuca (2004), O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias (2006), Espérame mucho (1983) to name a few.) Interestingly though, priests sometimes belong to left-wing movements which looks quite unusual in comparison with the Soviet world of ex-USSR. And when it comes to politics, such people suffer a lot, and that's when their somewhat "heroic" side appears. Anyway, this movie is not an exception, and there's a leftish priest teacher at school who helps kids understand many important things including democracy, and even sex. But the most important lesson for Ramón is when he learns that:
"FRIENDSHIP: Your friend is your brother even if he fails you."
Although boys replace "fails" with another f-word, but hey, does this really change the meaning of the sentence?! :)
The will for change often means the need to lose something from the past. Indeed, Ramón has to break all of his three rules, but having carefully learned the lessons taught by his heroes he manages to make new friends (and also a girlfriend, by the way, well, sort of.) And that's only the very beginning of the film!
How to turn bullies to friends? How to keep friendship alive? How will the political situation in 1970's Spain affect it? Is that possible to stay friends after school is over? Even if the friend fails you? These and many other important questions are explored through out this movie. The ending is unexpected, very beautiful, and perfect in my opinion.
