Leave it to the Danes to take what looks like a big ole quirk-fest and turn it into something much more disturbing. At the start, Anders Thomas Jensen’s film has all the makings for a light, quirky comedy about brotherhood. Brothers Gabriel (David Dencik) and Elias (Mads Mikkelsen) have a strained relationship but have to reunite once their father dies. Upon his death, the two watch a video left to them where their father reveals they were adopted and only half-brothers, sharing the same father but not the same mother (both mothers died during childbirth). With only the name of their biological father to go by, Gabriel eventually finds out that he lives on a tiny island with a population of just over 40 people. Gabriel and Elias head off and discover a series of dark, twisted and morbidly funny revelations about their family’s past.

The film’s introduction to its two main characters, with Gabriel missing his father’s death due to a gag reflex and Elias taking a break during a date to jerk off in a public washroom, implies that Men & Chicken will play out as a bland and juvenile comedy of eccentricities. Thankfully Jensen doesn’t go down a predictable route, instead changing the film’s location to the secluded island and making things get a lot weirder with the introduction of three other half-brothers (Nicolas Bro, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Soren Malling) that have basically been raised as animals. Quirks and peculiarities soon give way to slapstick hijinks once the five siblings begin operating on the same abnormal wavelength, and Jensen introduces more sadistic pieces of information until, by the end, Men & Chicken is like a Cronenberg film crossed with your average Sundance family drama. Jensen and his game cast (especially Mikkelsen, who’s hard to recognize at points) make it work too, and turn Men & Chicken into a film that’s just as strange as it is entertaining.

Kristian Levring’s The Salvation is a true Western. If a check-list exists around essentials of the genre, he’s surely read the list and checked it twice. Revenge, grit, the most evil of bad guys, dirt, shotguns, horses, and a body count that calls into question how early America was able to stay populated at all. Starring Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt), Eva Green, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Levring’s film is a perfect throwback to the Westerns of old except that it can’t help but be swept up in its own modernity. The very act of using today’s bells and whistles to create such an homage piece invokes a sense of nostalgia but mostly distracts enough to cause the film to miss its mark. For all its action, bathetic conventions, and Mikkelsen’s perfectly edged face marked with old-world determination, The Salvation entertains but doesn’t inspire. It’s a reminder of all we love of Westerns, but lacking in the modern integrity we’ve come to expect.

Mikkelsen plays Jon, a Danish immigrant in late 19th century wild west America. He and his brother (Mikael Persbrandt) left their home country and their families to build fresh prospects and now, seven years later, Jon’s wife Marie (Nanna Øland Fabricius) and son Kresten (Toke Lars Bjarke) have traveled to join him. They aren’t reunited more than a few hours when the surly evil men of the wild west attempt to take advantage of Marie in the stage-coach. Jon scuffles with them but is thrown from the coach. By the time he catches up to them, he is too late, his family is dead. Jon manages to get the rifle of the men and kills them both. He makes plans to sell his land and leave, but he doesn’t realize he’s killed the brother of the baddest outlaw around, Delarue (Morgan).

Delarue marches into the town demanding penance for the murder of his brother. The Sheriff/town preacher Mallick (Douglas Henshall) isn’t able to meet Delarue’s demand that the killer be found in a matter of hours, so he takes his price, several of the innocent townspeople, including an elderly grandmother. It’s a brutal introduction to the film’s villain, but certainly leaves no doubt that Delarue is a painstakingly one-dimensional evil-driven mad man. Mallick eventually tracks Jon down, deciding that handing him over to Delarue will buy him some time until government reinforcements can help him out. Jon is strung up and left to die, his brother imprisoned. And then the action starts.

Eva Green is Madelaine, a mute whose tongue was cut out when she was captured by Native Americans. Delarue’s brother saved her and married her, no doubt without asking for her input. Delarue gladly takes his brother’s place as her caretaker and lover, but Madelaine plots her escape, unsuccessfully. Green is excellent in the role, her naturally icy stare making up for her utter lack of dialogue. Mikkelsen and Persbrandt kick ass, taking down Delarue’s henchman one by one as he enacts his revenge.

Levring’s close following of the laws of Westerns entertain at first, making it hard not to smile at their obviousness. Unfortunately, they are never able to make up for the more glaring holes in The Salvation. While Westerns are known for their lack of dialogue, Levring seems to have deliberately tried to create cookie-cutter characters, the most obvious of these being Jon and Delarue, the main characters. Jon has clear motivation (the murder of his family) but almost no depth otherwise. We know he was a soldier, but nothing of his personal conviction. But hey, he looks like a badass, and badasses do badass things. Delarue on the other hand might as well be a cartoon character from Rocky and Bullwinkle. Sure, he understands the significance of the “sticky oil” bursting out of the ground in the area, secretly buying up all the land to make a profit, but mostly he’s just a blood-driven fiend, shooting people rather than inciting any real fear or authority over them.

It’s easy to be swept away watching Jens Schlosser’s visuals, it’s a beautiful film; the production design executed to perfection by Jørgen Munk, and the era captured intricately by Diana Cilliers’ costumes. And although revenge is almost always sweet, The Salvation is so clearly using its Western facade to cover what is actually a brainless, bloody, action film that it leaves a more hollow feeling after its credits roll. Levring has talent and all the trappings, but any cowboy could tell him it isn’t the size of your gun, it’s how you use it.

No film released this year has left me more shattered during its end credits than Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt. The film has moments of immense power and at times is very hard to watch. The story, co-written by Vinterberg, lives on the heartstrings of its characters, led by a towering performance from Danish leading man Madds Mikkelsen.

Lucas (Mikkelsen) is a divorced man who works at an elementary school. Right away we are shown Lucas loves his job and his fellow teachers as well as the kids at the school love him. At every moment the kids seem to be tackling him, laughing as they do it. He is a modest man who is a little on the quiet side. I remember scenes of him nonchalantly walking to and from school, enjoying his surroundings with every step he takes.

Lucas’ best friend for the past 20 years has been Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen). Theo’s 5 year old daughter, Klara, attends the same school where Lucas teaches at. Klara develops a small innocent crush on Lucas and in one scene approaches him about it. Lucas dismisses her notion, but Klara retaliates by telling the principal that he molested her. The remainder of the film deals with the outcome of the event. Lucas’ life slowly begins to unravel one piece at a time. At first the principal suggests that he should not come to school for a while, but before long he is told he doesn’t have a job anymore. His girlfriend sticks with him until his depression is eventually too much for her to handle.

What impressed me most about Vinterberg’s scintillating film is how real all the events felt, especially the characters and their motivations and reactions to everything that happens. In one scene, Theo, who, remember, has been best friends with Lucas for 20+ years, threatens to kill him if everything his daughter has said turns out to be true. In another scene close friends and family of Lucas rally around him to support him; I feel like in lesser movie he would’ve been alone to drive the isolation theme home.

As mentioned before, The Hunt is a very hard film to watch at times. Much of it is Lucas suffering as people around him ex-communicate him as he tries to prove his innocence. Some of these scenes, however, I felt were taken in the wrong direction by Vinterberg. One scene involving Lucas’ teenage son going to Theo’s home (during a gathering with their friends and family nonetheless) seems completely unnecessary. I understand what the point Vinterberg was trying to make, but I feel like the scene just didn’t need to belong in this film.

Another scene has Lucas being assaulted at a grocery store by the staff who tells him he isn’t welcome. After refusing to leave they beat him up and end up throwing canned goods at him as he lies defenseless on the ground. The result of this scene is Theo watching from his car in the parking lot as Lucas walks away morally deflated at how the community is treating him. In my opinion, this scene was little over the top.

While a couple of scenes felt out of place, there is no denying how great this film is. Vinterberg handles The Hunt with elegance and Mikkelsen is hypnotic in the lead performance (he would get an Oscar nomination if I were voting). The closing scenes of the film suggest that while you may be proven innocent, you will have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life because not everyone will be convinced of your innocence. Vinterberg’s film is not only scary in how proficient it is, but also in how close to reality it is. The Hunt is a mesmerizing film that will haunt you long after it’s over.

The Hunt trailer:

Love, politics and religion set the stage for Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair, Denmark’s official entry into this year’s Foreign Language Film race at the Academy Awards. Telling the true story of Queen Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander) who, while married to King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard), had an affair with the king’s physician Johann Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen), this is an affair that isn’t afraid to let its emotions all out when the time is appropriate for them. For most of its duration, these intense desires, torments and rages are broiling just underneath the surface and as a result when Arcel allows them onto the surface you are truly able to feel them to their fullest extent.

It certainly helps that he has one of the finest casts I’ve seen so far this year, headlined by three tremendous performances from the leading triumvirate. Mikkelsen, the most seasoned of the group, is unsurprisingly brilliant in his portrayal of a man who plays his cards close to the chest but lets his guard down when in the company of the ravishing Mathilde. He’s a mostly reactionary figure for a large part of the picture, but the final act allows him to really sell the emotions that he had been bottling up inside and this is where he demands your attention in each frame.

Vikander has come onto the scene in a big way this year, receiving standout reviews for her work in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina and offering an open, incredibly fragile portrayal of Mathilde here. As the constantly scorned queen, she is often found fighting an internal battle not to lash out and forcing herself to take the abuse put upon her, having to hide her inner feelings in exchange for a more peaceful endgame. As with Mikkelsen, she shines brightest in the final act when that slow-burn explodes and she is able to pour out all of the internal anguish she had been building (her animalistic scream is sure to leave a mark), and the luminescence that fills her up when they’re on screen together is a beautiful contrast to the bleaker emotions felt throughout the rest of the picture.

The major newcomer here is Folsgaard, who takes on his first major role with impressive skill, getting a very big character and taking full advantage of it. We are constantly reminded that the king’s mental health isn’t in the best state, though we don’t particularly need the reminder whenever Folsgaard is allowed to bring that insanity to the surface, which is often. Mikkelsen and Vikander are given the opportunity to build more rounded, fuller representations of their characters off of the page which pays off big time in that final act, but Folsgaard’s performance is practically one money scene after the next.

A Royal Affair loses its steam a bit in the final act, as the political shifting behind the scenes doesn’t mesh too well with the love story that takes center stage, but it’s all part of the required setup that brings us to that explosive climax which is well worth any minor complaints along the way. This is one that earns every bit of emotion you eventually feel in those final stages, setting itself up brilliantly along the way. Adapted from a novel by Bodil Steensen-Leth, the script from Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg doesn’t overly concern itself with feeding you a history lesson, but rather gets the necessary information out while building mostly around that passionate struggle at the heart of the picture. A film that truly earns its emotional payoff, Nikolaj Arcel’s is one that I’m surely going to be rooting to pick up a nomination come January.

It turned out that the day I was most cautious about was the best experience I had at the festival so far. Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt has been one of the hotter titles here, with praise thrown at it left and right from people who got the chance to see it. I didn’t know much about The Hunt going in, and despite my little knowledge beforehand it didn’t buck the current trend of ‘good not great’ that I’ve been experiencing. Kindergarten teacher Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) has his life turned upside down when a student at his school falsely accuses him of molesting her. The girl has a crush on Lucas, but when he rejects a gift she made for him (which she snuck in his coat shortly before trying to kiss him on the mouth) the girl angrily tells another teacher that he exposed himself to her. What makes this situation even more complicated is that the girl’s father is Lucas’ best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen). The Hunt is a crackling drama that benefits greatly from taking what would be a morally black and white situation and forcing it into a grey area. Every character behaves justifiably (I can’t say the same for their actions), and Vinterberg milks out the intensity of the situation as much as possible. The first hour of the film, with Lucas slowly being ostracized by the town, is mostly predictable until Vinterberg brings in Lucas’ son. The movie shifts its POV to the son, and when we see how the townspeople deem him guilty by association things take an interesting turn. Mads Mikkelsen is terrific as Lucas, but some praise should also go to Bo Larsen who easily sells how conflicted his character is over whether to condemn or stand by his best friend. The Hunt may have been too see-through for me to truly enjoy it, but Vinterberg has crafted a very good movie here.

RATING: 7.5/10

The Hunt

And just as I was lamenting the lack of truly great films at TIFF this year, along comes Leviathan to save the day. As we’ve already mentioned in our trailer post, Leviathan is an abstract documentary that was filmed on a fishing boat working around the eastern seaboard. The opening sequence starts out from the point of view of a fisherman hauling in a catch, but suddenly the camera is thrown into the ocean. As the camera bobs up and down in the ocean we get brief glimpses of seagulls flying in the sky. Describing these kinds of scenes don’t do justice to how visceral watching Leviathan is. The use of small GoPro cameras not only gets some amazing footage, it lends an otherworldly quality to what’s on screen. The constant movement makes it impossible to orient oneself, so when the camera catches a net being pulled in during the night it can easily look like some sort of monstrous creature coming out of the water. I don’t see how anyone could watch Leviathan outside of a theatre and get the same impact as watching it on a giant screen. After being assaulted for nearly 90 minutes, the lights came on in the theatre and I suddenly realized that I seemed to have lost my place. Everything around me looked foreign, like I was suddenly dropped into the theatre and trying to figure out where I was. It’s the kind of reaction I’ve never had after watching a film, and it left me feeling euphoric afterwards. Leviathan is the best film of the year for me right now, the kind of movie that makes me realize why I love going to TIFF in the first place.

RATING: 9/10

Leviathan

NEXT UP: Post Tenebras Lux which gained Carlos Reygadas a Best Director prize at Cannes this year. It’ll be followed by When Night Falls, which annoyed the Chinese government so much that they offered to buy the film just so they could bury it. Plus, a review of Motorway.

Recap of some of my Tweets from today:

Follow @WayTooIndie for full coverage of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival!

In line for THE HUNT right now after arriving early at #TIFF12 today. Don’t know much about this film other than it pisses some people off.

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

Thomas Vinterberg at a Q&A for THE HUNT which got a standing ovation twitter.com/WayTooIndie/st…

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

Now in line for the premiere of LEVIATHAN which @cinemaguild has picked up for distribution! That already tells me it must be good #TIFF12

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

Someone just asked Vinterberg if he could explain dogme 95. KILL ME.

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

Overheard someone say they thought Morgan Freeman died a week ago, so anyone who thinks that #TIFF12 is for intellectuals can rest easy

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 12, 2012

Audience sat in stunned silence throughout credits of LEVIATHAN. Here’s a pic of the very shy directors #TIFF12 twitter.com/WayTooIndie/st…

— Way Too Indie (@WayTooIndie) September 13, 2012