The now 40-year-old director Michael Noer came flying from the start in 2010 with first fængselsfilmen ‘R’ and then bandeopgøret in the ‘Northwest’. Since it was a little more fumbling with the drama ‘Key house mirror’ as well as the slightly anonymous international remake of the classic ‘Papillon’.
But Noer is very much back on track with bondedramaet ‘Before the frost’, which again highlights the strength of the Noers little prunkløse shape. Understood in the way that we on the one side is in the own emotions violence here, while the whole thing is told with a klædeligt bated breath and a cold eye.
And so the stresses Noer here, his ability to create nuanced and persons whose motives and laws we understand to the fullest – also the more svinagtige of them.
Nothing is neither all black or all white here. A bit like in the real world. In this context, it is impossible to get without about Jesper Christensen, who once again shows his undoubted format. Him we return to.
We find ourselves out in the country sometime in the 1850’ies. Times are tough – not least on the small farm (or maybe closer to said ronne), where the farmer Jens (Christensen) lives with his adult daughter Signe (Clara Rosager), and his two orphaned nephews. The harvest has failed, and there is certainly nothing in the coffer, to tear away, so good advice is expensive (literally), if you must come alive through the winter.
People (at least the most disadvantaged of them) is at the time a commodity in line with the livestock, so the solution will be, to Signe – against her will, as she has already been promised away to other not-so-profitable side – to marry with the local storbonde, to this buy the small plot, as well as pay Jens’ aftægt.
Reviews – 12. nov. 2015. 21:27 Passion without temperament, Ghita Nørby
What eventually happens, of course, not be divulged here, but I can tell you that much, as that there will also be equal on the table. The big question in this context is, of course, how far one is willing to go to save his children? But perhaps just as much how far you are willing to go to hoe his own potatoes?
Jens is just as self-sacrificing as he is self-absorbed, but even when he behaves conducted nederdrægtigt, we feel some form of sympathy or at least understanding of it. This is due, of course, both the instruction and the manuscript, but not least, Christensen’s tour de force here, where he delivers one of his great achievements. Which as you know does not say so little. He is in my eyes the country’s greatest living actor. So it is said.
This means, of course, also something that he gets the classy response all the way around. Signe’s transformation throughout the film is fascinating feel just like the halvsvenske storbonde Gustav (Magnus Krepper) is not just a single, malicious owner, which otherwise would have been the easiest. And Ghita Nørby is delightfully diabolical in a minor supporting role as his Danish mother. But it is in the whole the roof is not someone who enters by the door.
to be Highlighted should also the photographer Sturla Brandt Grøvlens beautiful, gråmelerede pictures, which places the spectator in with both feet buried deep in the mud. It is so pretty out in the country, they say. Yes, this is a truth with modifications. If you know the artist L. A. Ring’s painting from the hard peasant, then you have a very good sense of the tone here.
‘Before the frost’ is the first of the great Danish movie experience in the theaters, and there is to be a part, if not also end up being one of the year’s best. An obvious bid for a Danish Oscar candidate. Thank you for the fine team effort,but not the least thank you for giving Jesper Christensen space to (re) folding his unique talent in full bloom.
Medv.: Jesper Christensen, Clara Rosager, Ghita Nørby, Magnus Krepper m.fl.
