Scandinavian Film Festival

 Scandinavian film is a kind of austere undertaking. Childbirth and frozen tundra are familiar ingredients. Their major figures are a purposeful lot - Victor Sjöström, Carl Dreyer, Alf Sjöberg, the frequently dreadful Ingmar Bergman or the Dogma guys. The few Scandinavians who went in for energetic popular material, aimed at bringing the audience back next week, didn't get far with subtitles - think Tancred Ibsen, Gustav Molander or Hans Peter Moland. Approachable films are more likely to come from the Americas. With the minimal information available, I tend to prioritise their festivals. 

I picked a couple of titles here, almost at random. 

 Vejen hjem / Way Home is a characteristically challenging proposition, whatever way you come at it. It's curious to see it when I'm fresh from American Pastoral - Elle Fanning recruited by the Weathermen. The Danish counterpart is the most ambitious film treatment of ISIS I’ve watched. Islamic extremists have taken over the spot in movies reserved for Nazis and child molesters and with this one director Charlotte Sieling (Margrete den første) has to convince viewers that what she is putting on screen is a plausible reality as well as field something that is involving dramatic entertainment.

The film starts with a minibus load of stragglers disgorged onto the desert slopes of the Syrian border, on their way to join “The Free Syrian Army.” Among this lot, spot the mature features of bearded Nikolaj Lie Kaas, an important Danish star, though the bulk of his work hasn’t reached us. He's in Adam’s Apples and the Department K Series, that ran to the Flaskepost fra P, a spin-off feature directed by Moland.

Way Home - Kass

Kass carries a concealed photo of a teenage boy and a cell phone he uses to call home to inform his separated wife about his progress in locating the fugitive son. The kid has joined ISIS. Kass manages to reassure other Danish would-be recruits about his contact with the Mosque back home and when he proves to be down with handling an automatic rifle, after his army tour in Afghanistan and Iraq, he’s welcome. Ambushed with one of the patrols of their unit, he’s the one to return fire and rescue blundering novice Aria Kashef, who he joined with. The kid is the first to vouch for Kass’ commitment to Jihad after that.

We get a scene where jets take out the car ahead of the group on the desert road. Our lot rush to help retrieve their wounded child from the burning vehicle, only to have his parents make off with their own transport, stranding them.

Kass' unit is overrun by an ISIS command, who consider their tolerant brand of Islam offensive. The prisoners are lined up bloodied, while through the window Kass spots son Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt (they appeared together in the series  Familier som vores). The kid’s chores include punching boys younger than him in the gut, as part of their training. Kass has to join the execution of his recent comrades in arms. The film’s most telling image is his son applauding enthusiastically. 

     Way Home - Kass

The commander, speaking British English, incorporates Kass into his force, joining them in worship (“No man prays alone, except on the battle field”) where our hero, now in the black scarf uniform, is just a fraction out of time with the rest, checking his neighbors on when to bow their heads or kneel.

 Sieling's background is in documentaries and she first saw the project as non-fiction. Some of her research turned up as the story of one recruit who refused to go into battle claiming his Nike trainers had been stolen, which here metamorphoses into Kass warning new recruit Kashef about wearing tennis shoes in combat. The film’s most telling passages are the secret meetings between father and son, where the boy has embraced the structure his family never provided, along with his new martyr status (“Death is more important than life”) These come contextualised by a call to the judgemental mother (voice of Trine Dyrholm) resigned to the loss of her son, which his father still refuses to accept

It is all heavy stuff and the mounting needs to be flawless. I couldn’t help picturing the set decorator painting those convincing raised fist stencils on the white walls of the Jordanian settings. It’s a tribute to the uniform excellence of the performances that the impact of on-screen events does register. This is a film that stays with the viewer.

Also on show was Frederik Louis Hvild's De lydløse/The Quiet Ones, an account of the 2008 Copenhagen cash warehouse break-in, which remains the biggest theft in Danish history. 

We start with sculpted torso boxer Gustav Dyekjær Giese (Retfærdighedens ryttere/Riders of Justice), who at thirty is training for his last crack at the championship. He is approached by fellow hard man, English-speaking Radar  Kateb from Un prophète, the film's most familiar face. With the responsibility of a young family and the upcoming title shot, Giese at first participates only in the proposed robbery's planning stages. However, a failed break-in by a rival gang and a visit to the site, that shows him security is feeble, convince him to take over. 

Meetings have been in the grubby gym and dim underground parkings, all filmed in that murky high grain style that we wished had gone out of fashion. A  cut to a domestic scene introduced by a close-up of hands washing up in the kitchen sink brings hope of a lightening of tone but no such luck. Kateb is soon drowning squeeze Ida Cæcilie Rasmussen in the basin. 

The crew set about stealing a fleet of garbage trucks to block pursuit on roads spread with nails and digging up Kalashnikovs ("war guns - dirt won't stop them"). The preparation is the best element of the film, with Giese psyching himself up the way we've seen him prepare for the ring.

The job itself is staged on a disappointing small scale. The earth mover, which is supposed to smash the vault wall at first try, proves inadequate, while cop cars swarm to the scene, only to keep their distance waiting for the SWAT team. Trim security guard Amanda Collin, who we've seen uneasily asserting herself in this macho world, shows up, raising hopes of her big scene, but that's a letdown. When it's all over and they are dividing up a "remote shit house" full of cash (dollars, krona and euros only), Giese checks reports to see if she is all right.

After a bank job that's not as good as the one in Rififfi, we get the ending of the Stanley Baker-Peter Yates Robbery turned around a bit. This one gets by but it would have been nice to see the unfamiliar context deliver more.

 

Barrie Pattison - 2025.