Product: After The Wedding (Despues De La Boda) [NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America] (2006)
Rating: 5.0
You Can't Go Home Again
Jacob, doing humanitarian work at an Indian children's refuge, (the erstwhile "Casino Royale" villain, Mads Mikkelsen) doesn't know what to think when his superior tells him that a prospective benefactor ( Rolf Lassgard in a heart wrenching performance as Jorgen) requires Jacob to return, after twenty years, to Denmark so that the refuge can receive a huge donation. So as much as Jacob dislikes the idea, and at this point we know not why, he returns to Denmark in Susanne Bier's remarkable, emotionally charged, sometimes even overwrought "After the Wedding."Bier has composed this film in much the same way as a Verismo opera: scenes of confrontation, scenes of enlightenment, scenes of disclosure are piled one on top of the other as the film slithers insinuatingly towards its tragic yet redemptive denouement.All of the main characters: Jacob, Jorgen, Jorgen's wife Helene (Sidse Babett Knudsen in a mature, sexy performance) and Helene and Jorgen's daughter, Anna (Stine Fischer Christiansen: young, fresh, committed) are transformed, turned around and pointed in another direction psychically and physically by film's end due to the catastrophic upheavals that they endure during the course of this amazing film. Bier is dealing with Melodrama here, with a capital "M." Melodrama done up right: not as a joke but as serious and humane as the Master's of this genre: Almodovar and Douglas Sirk ("Written on the Wind") to name a couple.Mikkelsen's Jacob, due in a large part to Mikkelsen's hang-dog, stoic physical appearance, is an empty vessel at the beginning of this film. His work at the refuge is fulfilling and good yet you can't help feeling that Jacob is hiding from life rather than contributing to it and that his reluctance to venture back home to Denmark is his way of primarily keeping his past at arm's length. By the end, Jacob is transformed, filled up, overflowing by way of the redemptive powers of confession and acceptance: he's been opened, upended, turned inside out.Don't come to Bier's world of "After the Wedding" expecting to be lulled into anything resembling a calm, quiet mood...you will genuinely be unsettled. Do come to "After the Wedding," in many ways similar to "The Celebration," expecting to squirm in your seat, to have your guts wrenched with the terrific bravura acting of this ensemble of actors, to cry your eyes out at scenes of transcendental beauty and truth. This film will challenge you not to react and therefore in one way or another you will react due in large part to Bier's compassionate mise en scene. A mise en scene rife with humanity and love.