danish cinema then and now: dreyer, von trier and beyond april 11 - 23, 1997 photo: a scene from HAMSUN

Presented in collaboration with the Danish Film Institute and the Danish Film Producers Association. Special thanks also to the Danish Filmmuseum, the Consulate General of Denmark in New York, and especially to Lissy Bellaiche. With one of the world's oldest film traditions, Denmark continues to make important contributions to world cinema and film culture. Although fewer than 20 feature films (including children's films--see MOVIES FOR KIDS: DANISH DELIGHTS) are produced each year, Danish films have earned a remarkable number of awards (including Oscars for Gabriel Axel's BABETTE'S FEAST and Bille August's Pelle the Conquerer) as well as achieved international box-office success--most recently, with Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves. Indeed, a number of recent Danish films--even some in this series--are slated for U.S. remakes. Several of the films included here focus on specifically Danish subjects--such as SØREN KIERKEGAARD, a provocative meditation on the lasting impact of the great Danish philosopher, or KAREN BLIXEN: STORYTELLER, a portrait of the writer featuring rare television interview footage. Yet what might be peculiarly "Danish" about so many of the films in the series is the extraordinary use of light. Perhaps living in a northern country with long, dark winters has made Danish filmmakers especially sensitive to the power of light on spaces, architecture and, of course, people. One might even describe a tradition in Danish art stretching back to 19th-century painters such as Hammershøi moving through the magnificent illumination in Dreyer's images and arriving in the kind of amazing work on image texture and quality found in films such as THE KINGDOM or PUSHER. calendar program notes and times

a scene from THE BOYS FROM ST. PETRI a scene from PORTLAND

Note: All films are subtitled in English except for IMAGES OF RELIEF, which is in Danish without subtitles. Simultaneous translation will be provided. THE BOYS FROM ST. PETRI Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, 1991; 110 minutes "The entire young cast is played by amateurs....The film is a tribute to any spontaneous protest, a tribute to the amateur, to all young people who have fought oppression, a struggle that eventually leads to enlightenment." --Søren Kragh-Jacobsen. This remarkably sensitive film interweaves actual historical events with subtle readings of individual human character and the capacity for loyalty, courage and friendship in a time of terrible crisis. In late summer of 1942, a group of Danish high school boys begins by playing tricks on the Germans occupying their country, but soon escalates into more serious assaults. Eluding both German and Danish authorities, the young men are caught up in their own passionate fraternal rivalries and, inevitably, a paroxysm of violence. Friday, April 11: 2 pm Tuesday, April 15: 6:15 pm HEROES Thomas Vinterberg, 1996; 88 minutes A bittersweet, modernday Danish Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, HEROES chronicles the short, happy flight of two misfits and a 12-year-old girl. Dad's a convict, out of prison on a weekend pass, and his sidekick's given to popping pills, but Louise, on the run from an abusive stepfather, comes to love them both as her "heroes" spread a trail of chaos on their way to Sweden. A touching, witty, but hard-hitting "take" on a trio of unlikely fathers and daughter. Friday, April 11: 4:30 and 9 pm Saturday, April 12: 6:15 pm PORTLAND Niels Arden Oplev, 1996; 103 minutes When Janus leaves prison after doing time for drug-dealing, he's met at the gate by his sensitive kid brother Jakob, who's run away from a foster home. Jakob looks to Janus for love and security, but is plunged into despair when his brother steals a car just blocks from jail and begins to force old folks to sell their prescribed drugs in order to pay off the leader of a biker gang. Oplev's first feature is a dark, uncompromising story about a painful but necessary coming-of-age, shot through with an unexpectedly baroque sense of humor. PORTLAND will be presented at Film Forum, May 28 - June10. Friday, April 11: 6:30 pm Saturday, April 12: 4 pm HAMSUN Jan Troell, 1996; 160 minutes Knut Hamsun, 1920 Nobel Laureate, was born in 1859 and died at 92; his life spanned the age of horse-drawn carriages, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb. Isaac Bashevis Singer called this Norwegian novelist "the father of the modern school of literature," and Thomas Mann, André Gide, and H.G. Wells were counted among his admirers. Yet this great writer's reputation is marred by his public support of Hitler during the Nazi occupation of his country. In this ambitious investigation of a complex soul, Swedish director Jan Troell and superb actor Max von Sydow catch the fallible man and towering artist, especially in his 40-year marriage to Marie (Ghita Nørby), a young and talented actress--who stood by him while he committed and paid for an act of high treason. Sunday, April 13: 7 pm Friday, April 18: 4 pm Saturday, April 19: 8:45 pm PUSHER Nikolas Winding Refn, 1996; 105 minutes A gritty, no-punches-pulled excursion into the dangerous world of Frank, a smalltime Copenhagen heroin dealer. The cast of characters inhabiting the pusher's underworld features Milo, a Croatian druglord; Tony, Frank's sidekick and confidante; and Vic, the stripper and "champagne" hooker who wants to go south and settle down. Frank's easy life of making deals and money and drinking armagnac in posh restaurants comes to an abrupt end when Milo calls in a debt the pusher can't pay. Kim Bodnia's Frank reminded many critics of Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's Breathless, and this down-and-dirty thriller immediately hit the top of the Danish box-office, surpassed only by megahit Mission: Impossible. Saturday, April 12: 9:30 pm Tuesday, April 15: 4 pm Friday, April 18: 8:45 pm BLIND JUSTICE aka THE NIGHT OF REVENGE (HAVNENS NAT) Benjamin Christensen, 1915; approximately 75 minutes With live piano accompaniment by Curtis Salke (print courtesy of the Danish Film Museum) The silent film program at the Walter Reade Theater is made possible through the generosity of the Ira M. Resnick Foundation. One of the world's first great film industries developed in Denmark, competing with the French and Italians for control of the international film market prior to WWI. Perhaps the finest filmmaker to emerge from this period was Benjamin Christensen, who later made several interesting horror films in Sweden (Haxan) and Hollywood (Seven Footprints to Satan). Often acting in as well as directing his films, Christensen was an early master of film style. In BLIND JUSTICE, his second film, he plays a circus strong man and escaped convict who steals a baby from an orphanage. Breaking into a woman's home, he holds her hostage but is later recaptured and sent back to prison, vowing revenge and setting in motion a complex tale of guilt, reparation and redemption. Christensen clearly influenced Dreyer, who called him "a man who knew exactly what he wanted and who pursued his goal with uncompromising stubbornness." Sunday, April 13: 4:30 pm THE EIGHTEENTH Anders Rønnow-Klarlund, 1996; 96 minutes On May 18, 1993, the day Denmark votes on whether or not to join the European Union, a number of idiosyncratic individuals accidently cross paths, in encounters that change their lives forever. Neurotic Jens and taciturn Pernille unwittingly cause a hit-and-run accident involving little Sara, the daughter of jazz singer Ulla who--also unwittingly--saves Jens's life. Hip businessman Michael, an ardent pro-Unionist, bumps into Ulla outside the voting booth and inadvertently casts a nay-vote. Sundry cops and call-girls weave even more color into this tapestry of seemingly random intersections and design--an auspicious and audacious debut for director Rønnow-Klarlund. Tuesday, April 15: 2 and 8:30 pm

a scene from THE KINGDOM a scene from BABETTE'S FEAST

KAREN BLIXEN: STORYTELLER Christian Braad Thomsen, 1995; 90 minutes For anyone fascinated by the uncommon woman who lived and wrote the exotically beautiful novel Out of Africa (1985) and other hypnotic fiction, this documentary by filmmaker and scholar Thomsen is a treasure trove. Thomsen has collected rare newsreel and television footage featuring Karen Blixen / Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), including lengthy sequences from a 1959 visit to the USA when Blixen was entertained by Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. Featuring Blixen recounting mesmerizing fictions, this is a film that's sure to provide new insights into the wonderful, terrible life of a monstre sacré. Thursday, April 17: 2 pm Friday, April 18: 2 and 7 pm Saturday, April 19: 7 pm SØREN KIERKEGAARD Anne Regitze Wivel, 1994; 165 minutes A daring, artistically courageous portrait of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy, not as dead, abstract theory, but as everyday living actuality. Director Anne Wivel invites us to join a group of students and professors as they passionately debate observations by one of the founders of existentialism, while tranquil scenes from nature illustrate the simple life that anti-rationalist Kierkegaard believed might propel us into a necessary "leap of faith." No dry commentary on an anachronistic ethic here: Wivel aims for nothing less than a radical transformation--dialogue made so richly visual, communication becomes moving image. Saturday, April 19: 4 pm Monday, April 21: 8:30 pm IMAGES OF RELIEF / BEFRIELSESBILLEDER Lars von Trier, 1982, 55 minutes (Print from National Film School of Denmark) A rare opportunity to see von Trier's impressive "diploma film," completed as his final project for the National Film School of Denmark. In the days following the liberation of Denmark, a German officer escapes his internment and attempts to find his local mistress. Even in this early work von Trier's command of the medium is extraordinary; Copenhagen, formerly the conquered city, now brims with danger and possible treachery even as it experiences new freedom. Sunday, April 20: 4 pm Monday, April 21: 4:30 pm THE KINGDOM Lars von Trier, 1995; 279 minutes Von Trier stirs up a wicked brew of satire, horror and soap opera in this made-for-TV saga. The ghost of a little girl named Mary haunts a labyrinthine old Copenhagen hospital, beginning to fall apart as spirits from the swamp on which it is built become ever more unstable. A well-meaning spiritualist, the CYA head of staff, a Dane-hating neurosurgeon, black marketeer and hospital registrar Hook and his pregnant (by another man) girlfriend, the nutso chief of pathology, a severed head and an over-large foetus--these are just a few of the players in this sepia- (or urine-) steeped tour de force. Just the kind of spell-bindingly beautiful and otherworldly cinema you'd expect from the director of Breaking the Waves. Sunday, April 20: 5:30 pm Wednesday, April 23: 6:15 pm ORDET aka THE WORD Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955; 126 minutes A Danish pastor murdered by the Nazis for daring to publicly announce his allegiance to Christ over Hitler, Kaj Munk authored the play first filmed by Gustav Molander in 1943, then by Dreyer a decade later. In this rigorously beautiful religious experience, a West Jutland farmer and stern patriarch (Henrik Malberg) refuses to allow one of his sons to marry the woman he loves--the respective fathers are at philosophical odds. When another son's wife, the luminous Inge (Brigitte Federspiel), dies in childbirth, the third, visionary son (Preben Lerdorff-Rye) prays for her resurrection. The slow, inexorable movement of ORDET towards shattering epiphany is utterly unpretentious, wholly authentic in its ravishing austerity. Von Trier's Breaking the Waves, another masterpiece about redemption and resurrection, is a companion piece to ORDET. One might say that the two directors make moving pictures of Kierkegaard's leap of faith. Monday, April 21: 2 and 6 pm BABETTE'S FEAST Gabriel Axel, 1987; 105 minutes Winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar, BABETTE'S FEAST is a spell-binding celebration of the saving grace of gastronomic artistry. In 1871, a mysterious French-woman (Stéphane Audran), fleeing her wartorn nativeland, turns up on Denmark's bleak Jutland Peninsula, to become cook-housekeeper for a couple of spinster sisters (Bodil Kjer and Brigitte Federspiel). For 14 years, Babette serves the women, as they in turn serve the memory of their departed father, pastor of a self-denying religious sect. Then, simple cook is revealed as cordon-bleu chef and everyone who attends Babette's heavenly communion-feast is transformed. A funny, deeply moving fairy tale for grown-ups, faithfully adapted from a novella by Isak Dinesen. Tuesday, April 22: 2 and 7 pm JUST A GIRL Peter Schrøder, 1995; 165 minutes An epic drama of sharp wit and satiric bite, based on author / journalist Lise Norgaard's two best-selling 1992 volumes of unsentimental memoirs: One of a wealthy provincial merchant's two daughters, Lise stands up to her father's oft-reiterated prayers for a son and her mother's submissiveness. As WWII begins and Denmark is occupied, Lise makes a painful detour through marriage and motherhood before pursuing her destiny as a journalist, a profession her father scorns. A vital portrait of a time and a place, centered on a strong-willed woman who fights to be more than "just a girl." Tuesday, April 22: 4 and 9 pm Wednesday, April 23: 2 pm