As I mentioned in our Top 10 Anticipation feature for this year’s Berlinale, the last film Dogme 95 alumnus Thomas Vinterberg directed was the hushed-up epic Far From The Madding Crowd. With his latest, re-teaming with old-school buddy and fellow Dane Tobias Lindholm on the typewriter (err, computer), Vinterberg narrows his focus on a tight-knit self-made commune in 1970s Copenhagen, creating a film that’s all the better for being so intimate in scope. Acting thesps Ulrich Thomsen and Trine Dryholm join Vinterberg and Lindholm for the project, and the fact that all four crossed professional paths at one point or another gives The Commune a sense of instant familiarity; something that keeps the film glued together even when it threatens to fall apart in the third act.

Local news anchor Anna (Dryholm) is happily married to a professor of architecture Erik (Thomsen). Together with their 14-year-old daughter Freja (Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen), they move into Erik’s old childhood home after his father passes away. In order to spice up their lives and fill the house with more excitement, Anna has the idea to create a commune and invite all the fantastic people they know to live with them. It’s the 1970s, and co-op lifestyles are all the rage. A group of colorful characters round up the household, and everything is rosy up until Erik meets and falls hard for 24-year-old mini-Brigitte Bardot Emma (Helene Reingaard Neumann). Instead of pulling a fit, kicking him out, filing for divorce, or anything else we might expect a woman living in the 21^st century to do, Anna suggests something much more radical: invite Emma into the commune and see if they can all make it work.

While Anna’s blasé attitude towards Erik’s infidelity takes a bit of getting used to, Dryholm—with the support of Lindholm’s crackling screenplay—does an outstanding job of making us understand why she wants to give the unusual scenario a go. Besides, the foundation of a commune during the 1970s is built on open-mindedness and acceptance. The realizations that Anna goes through, while predictable, keep The Commune interesting throughout. It’s not long before we realize that the crux of the matter lies in the struggle between personal issues in an open-space environment. The central performances are fantastic, Lindholm packs in enough boisterous humor to keep entertainment levels high throughout, and Vinterberg’s direction is airtight; but there is a disingenuous imbalance in the characterization of all other members beside the original family unit, including much too much focus on an overtly engineered character that transforms from young boy to old ploy at the drop of a hat.

Rating:
7/10

There hasn’t been a movie recently that has beaten me down more emotionally than Baran bo Odar’s new film, The Silence. It’s like a bomb counting down to an explosion that never happens. But it’s not about the explosion, it’s about the tension that builds as the time ticks away.

Nearly every character in the film seems to have extreme emotional issues that are only amplified by the terrible crimes that are committed. At times Bo Odar’s film feels like a sledgehammer of anxiety hitting the viewer. While all of this sounds like a detriment to the film, I’m recommending it for its powerful impact and refusal to play nice.

The film begins in the mid 1980’s with two men watching a film in a small apartment. We don’t know who they are or what film they are watching. We then see them driving in a car in the country side until they see a young girl riding her bike alone. They follow her down a road in the middle of two fields. One of the men gets out and brutally rapes and murders her.

Cut to present day where the majority of the story takes place. We first meet Elena who is the mother of the victim in the past scenes. She’s obviously still very affected by the event. We also meet Sinnika, a young teenage girl who, when we meet her, is getting into an argument with her parents. She rides off on her bike, never to be seen again.

Sinnika goes missing in the same exact spot where the previous crime was committed, thus re-opening old wounds as a new investigation is opened. One of the investigators is Krischan, a detective who is about to retire. Feeling like he has a second chance after failing to solve the original case, Krischan fully throws himself into the investigation.

David, the lead detective on the case and one of the film’s more sympathetic characters, is just getting over losing his wife to cancer. While delving further into the case his depression soon takes over, as we watch his mental state slowly deteriorate throughout the film.

I was surprised at how immediate the film’s dread-filled atmosphere is established. A lot of the credit goes to the film’s sound design, feeling straight out of a David Lynch film. Other credit must also go to cinematographer Nickolaus Summerer whose framing of the film is immaculate.

While the story and the procedural are a great backbone for the film, it’s what bo Odar gets across to the audience that is the real story here. He shows, with great effect, how a crime reaches everyone involved in different ways with the same overall effect. All of the main characters have fragile emotions that are amplified by the central crime.

The closing scenes of The Silence don’t offer much hope for anyone involved. As I mentioned before, I felt pretty demoralized when I finished the film. Films like The Silence take courage to make. Rarely does a film come out and display the level of emotions that are found within this film such as grief, sorrow, and misery. bo Odar’s film spends two hours plummeting you to excruciating depths of its characters’ lives, but when it’s all said and done, you’ll feel richer for having watched a film that leaves everything on the table.