Product: After The Wedding (Despues De La Boda) [NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America] (2006)
Rating: 4.0
Surprising Revelations Drive a Powerfully Acted Contemporary Danish Melodrama
A Danish orphanage worker outside Mumbai, India, is summoned home to receive a large donation from a wealthy industrialist in this intensely acted 2006 drama that seamlessly melds Douglas Sirk's hyperbolic melodramas with Ingmar Bergman's more austere sensibilities. Directed with panache by Susanne Bier, the result is really an involving soap opera given greater texture and surprising plot turns by Anders Thomas Jensen' dexterous screenplay. 2006 was obviously a fertile year for world cinema as this emotionally vibrant film competed against Guillermo del Toro's Gothic fairy talePan's Labyrinthand the winner, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Cold War thrillerThe Lives of Others, for the 2006 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.The story's protagonist is Jacob Peterson, a taciturn man dedicated to the orphanage he runs in India, so much so that coming back to Denmark holds little interest for him other than securing the funding he needs from a multinational corporation headquartered in Copenhagen. The seemingly avuncular CEO Jrgen Hansson just wants to shake Jacob's hand for his humanitarian work. When Jacob arrives, however, it becomes clear that Jrgen hasn't quite made up his mind about the gift much to Jacob's consternation. It seems like a good omen when Jrgen invites Jacob to his daughter Anna's lavish wedding at his palatial home, but then Jacob meets Jrgen's comely wife Helene, who turns out to have known Jacob years before. The story peels off one revelation after another, sometimes with subtlety and other times with the forceful contrivance of a sledgehammer. Each of the major story developments hinges on a secret that a principal character is forced to reveal, most often with devastating consequences.Looking a bit like Viggo Mortenson's recessive brother, Mads Mikkelsen (almost unrecognizable as the nasty banker Le Chiffre inCasino Royale) portrays Jacob with haunting power, though sometimes the character is presented too elliptically for Mikkelsen to flesh out effectively. For instance, we don't get a deep sense of his inner struggle over saving thousands of children in India since he lets his pride stand in the way when it becomes convenient to the plot. Rolf Lassgard manages to capture the bluster and increasing desperation of a man used to having his way but unable to cope with the inevitable. When his character's motivations are slowly revealed, his performance starts to unravel into excess, especially in a no-holds-barred breakdown scene toward the end. As the wife with the complicated past, Sidse Babett Knudsen is genuinely affecting, as is Stine Fischer Christensen as the waif-like daughter caught in the middle.Bier's idiosyncratic filmmaking style can be seen in the unexpected jump cuts and the heavy use of close-ups on the actors' eyes during the most tense and cathartic moments. The 2007 DVD is sparse on extras. Neither a commentary track nor a making-of featurette are included, but there is a reasonably insightful twenty-minute interview with Bier conducted by Danish film critic Morten Piil. Also included are the theatrical trailer and eight deleted scenes which Bier explains to Piil were cut because they either detracted from the main storyline or made a redundant plot point with little additional benefit. Looking at them after seeing the film, I would agree with her assessment. It's a very well crafted piece of work and certainly provides enough dramatic fireworks and moments of true insight to make this worthwhile viewing despite the occasional plot contrivance.