Category Archives: Denmark

Movie: After the Wedding — Efter brylluppet (2006)

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When I started watching After the Wedding, I thought, “Oh, this resembles In a Better World!” and it turns out that both are products of Danish female director Susanne Bier. The subject matter is different, but there is a commonality in how she makes her movies. Some sort of abstract notion comes first and then various pieces of the story are grafted together incongruently, like connecting a tree with bamboo.

Jacob, a Danish man, manages an orphanage in India, but it has fallen into a state of near bankruptcy. At this time, a corporation from his homeland Denmark offers a donation. However, it is offered on the condition that Jacob comes to Copenhagen to meet the CEO. Jacob meets Jørgen—the CEO of the corporation—in Copenhagen, but since Jørgen’s daughter Anna is getting married that weekend, Jørgen invites Jacob to the ceremony. At the wedding ceremony, Jacob is reunited with Helene, his lover from 20 years ago, but Helene is now Jørgen’s wife. Jacob then learns that Anna is actually his biological daughter and is shocked. This meeting was actually set up in order for Jørgen—who has cancer and won’t live much longer—to entrust his family to Jacob after his death; he will donate an enormous sum to Jacob’s orphanage if Jacob agrees to live in Denmark. Jacob now faces the decision of whether to choose his biological daughter or the Indian orphans he loves.

This movie depicts just the short time period of before and after Anna’s wedding weekend, but many themes are packed into it. Propaganda to not forget about the poor in India; biological parents vs. adopted parents; if one’s homeland is the country one was born in or the country one chooses; deep love being passionate vs. steady; if true kindness is telling or not telling someone the sad reality; if one should live as an immature idealist vs. a problem-solving realist; the responsibility of a person for their family… Anyway, there are various ideas and reasonings packed into this movie. As a bonus, Anna discovers her husband having an affair immediately after the wedding ceremony, which is ridiculously hasty.

Since too many ideas were crammed into a two hour movie, the story fails in various places and becomes unrealistic. Immediately after Helene separated from Jacob, she realizes she is pregnant with Anna, but it doesn’t look like she made a great effort to find Jacob. “Although I waited for you to return to Denmark, you didn’t return after all,” she says, obscuring the situation with romantic words. If the two still have some remaining feelings for each other 20 years later, why didn’t they put in more effort to get each other back? As for Jørgen who made a fortune for himself and is surrounded by many friends, there should be someone who can help his family after his death; also, he should be able to have his lawyer manage his estate for his children. But why would Jørgen want to leave his family—which includes Helene and his young twins—to the care of Jacob, someone whose trustworthiness is unknown, after his death? Also, Jørgen seems to want Jacob to be with Helene after he dies, but why should two people who walked away from each other 20 years ago suddenly be together? Helene—still beautiful, economically stable, and strongly independent—doesn’t need a spouse when she becomes a widow, and if she does want one, she should be able to choose who that is, so why should that be her lover from 20 years ago?

Above all else, however, the most questionable part was how Jørgen so easily located Jacob in India. If Jørgen knew where Jacob was and had been observing him for a long time, it would be creepy; in the movie, Jørgen, in his finals days with cancer, is (luckily) able to track down Jacob and contact him. This is unrealistic. The first thing that someone who knows they won’t live long because of cancer does, as Jørgen does, is sort out their finances so that the people left behind don’t have to worry about it. However, the next thing they think about is spending every minute and every second of the little time they have left with their family that is most important. When faced with death for the first time, everything that until now was taken for granted would look completely different and even one’s view of life would change fundamentally. The story that he suddenly opens up his heart to someone that he doesn’t know at all is too unnatural.

Susanne Bier sprinkles in Afghanistan, Sudan, and other third world countries in her works, but it is said that she herself has never been to these countries until she starts filming it. All I can say is that she is the type of person whose conscience is somewhat awakened by information she may hear about a country. This movie aimed to be a poignant melodrama and scenes such as when Anna and Jacob build feelings as a parent and daughter are quite beautiful, but, in order to conveniently tell a beautiful story, there are too many occasions in this movie where disjointed details were forced together. It is hard to feel empathy with unrealistic things happening one after another; I understand the lovely intention of the director, but regretfully it was not an emotionally touching movie.

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Movie: Pelle the Conqueror — Pelle Erobreren (1987)

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This movie is not the story of Pelé, the renowned former Brazilian soccer player. Martin Andersen Nexø, a communist and proletarian author from Denmark, wrote the original Pelle Eroberen (Pelle the Conqueror), which was published in four parts between 1906 and 1910, and these books were adapted into a movie in 1987.

The boy Pelle and his father leave their homeland Sweden, and immigrate to Bornholm—a Danish island just a stone’s throw away from Sweden; they find work on a big farm taking care of cows while living in the farm’s barn along with the cows. Life there is incredibly harsh; the movie is filled with a persistent feeling of hopelessness from the beginning to the end, and the characters face failures one after another, as soon as any form of hope begins to sprout. Then at the very end, the movie finishes with Pelle leaving behind his father—who had given up hope for life—as he sets forth into a new world alone and at last breaks free from the farm. The movie continuously shows images of cold wind and the frozen ocean for two and a half hours, so I think many people may have a chilly feeling after they finish watching this movie. This movie makes me wonder how this boy—who doesn’t have any money in this foreign country, has no family or friends, and, if things don’t go well, could freeze overnight in this cold country—could survive. The title of Pelle “the Conqueror” seems ironic.

In my head, I thought, “Because it has a serious theme, it will be a good movie,”; the thrilling development and beautiful cinematography compelled me through two and a half hours, and I was made to think, “Since it won several awards such as the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the highest prize at Cannes, surely it’ll be a masterpiece.” But if someone were to look me straight in the eye and ask, “Did you really like this movie? Were you truly emotionally moved by it?” my answer about this movie would be, “Truthfully, I didn’t like this movie that much.”

Briefly what is wrong is the stereotypical and inconsistent way of depicting the characters. Regarding the stereotypes, you can compare this movie to Heneke’s The White Ribbon, which depicts the life of farmers during the same period. In Pelle the Conqueror, everything bad that happens to the farmers is due to the mid-level manager in charge of the farm. This manager gives his employees barely enough to eat, and he mentally and physically abuses his employees. This farm manager is like the devil, and the farm owner just gallivants around. Anyhow, the ruling class is depicted uniformly ugly and cruel. By contrast, when you watch The White Ribbon, the landowner isn’t exactly considerate towards the tenant farmers, but he makes every effort to improve the productivity of his farm, and is sure to keep his tenant farmers healthy and productive. Although the tenant farmers feel bitter about the difference in social status, they know it is the landowner who gave them their jobs and feeds their family, so they can respect the owner even if they don’t like him; in addition, the workers’ futures are insecure if their landlord were to disappear. So to speak, they have a symbiotic relationship. Also, The White Ribbon doesn’t depict the tenant farmers as being pure and innocent. Pelle the Conqueror claims that all of the ruling class is evil while the laborers are always the victim, and everything depicted in this movie is based on the theory of class struggle—inheriting the belief of the author Martin Anderson Nexø, who never doubted Marxism and communism until he died.

In terms of the inconsistent way of depicting the characters, the protagonist Pelle is a diligent, good boy, and he is liked well enough by the adults on the farm, but Pelle tells a boy who is poorer than him, “I’ll give you money if you let me whip you,” and then Pelle severely whips the boy until Pelle is bored and not interested in whipping anymore; there may be viewers who are sickened by watching this. The poorer child doesn’t have much going for him, but he is kind and, in one way, has skills to survive, as seen by how he teaches Pelle how to take care of the cows. At some point, this boy changes to being depicted as mentally retarded. Also, the bullying between the children is horrific. I have watched a fair number of Northern European movies, and surprisingly many of them include scenes of children bullying each other. Of course, bullying among children may exist in any time or place. However, why is it necessary to push bullying up to the front when making a movie like this? In addition, this movie shows the filthiness of the living conditions of the farm workers for two and a half hours, and this further depresses the viewers. Pelle and his father excrete their feces in the cow barn, and then sleep in a nearby stall at night. They don’t change their clothes much except into their one good suit for church, and always wear the same clothes that they don’t wash. I’m surprised they don’t also suffer from an epidemic or infectious disease. I wonder if they are particularly abused because they are immigrants.

Pelle is favored by the farmer’s wife and is selected for the position of being trained as the manager. The audience feels relieved that Pelle and his father can at last be happy, but Pelle, after hearing his father’s words—“You are finally given easy work here. You work with just words, and only have to say what to do. We are blessed,”—decides to not accept the position and runs away from the farm. In other words, the message that seems to be implied is, “By not joining and instead deciding to fight the ugly, exploiting ruling class, Pelle is the true meaning of a conqueror and a winner.” There is no message to improve your life, step-by-step, by completing your job diligently, even though it is hard. Even if the misery depicted was the reality of those times, what is the value in modern times of making this movie that is about class struggle? By 1987, Denmark and Sweden had already achieved a model welfare nation.

Perhaps the meaning of the word “conqueror” comes from the words that Erik, a coworker at the farm who loved Pelle, always said: “First, immigrate to America; then conquer the world.” Following the Industrial Revolution that happened from the 18th century until the 19th century, a series of advancements in agricultural technology occurred across Western Europe, the monetary economy spread, and big changes were happening in the European social structure. Most farmers that were operating independently to support themselves fell from being an independent farmer to being a low-wage worker. The difference between the rich and the poor became more and more severe, and Irishmen, Germans, Scandinavians, and Italians steadily immigrated to the new land of America. The reason for immigration may have differed slightly—people from France and Germany immigrated because of political persecution, while Russian Jews immigrated because of religious persecution—but all people immigrated to a new land in search for possibilities that were not available in constrictive Europe.

Perhaps life for Pelle after leaping from the island could be similar to Titanic’s Jack Dawson (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), who is similarly a fictional character of around the same age living during the same time. Jack Dawson was around 20 years old in 1912, dreamed of flourishing in America, and embarked on the Titanic. He wins a poker game of tough bidding against two Swedes who dreamed of immigrating to America, and gets a free boarding pass ticket for the Titanic.

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Movie: Out of Africa (1985)

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This movie was based on Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa that was published in 1937. Isak Dinesen is a man’s name, but actually the author is a woman whose real name is Karen Blixen. She used her male and female names for different purposes, and published many books in Danish and English; she was the author of Babette’s Feast, the movie of which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Out of Africa won the Academy Award for Best Picture, but the way this movie was made isn’t perfect; sometimes viewers who have not read the original work cannot understand because there aren’t explanations of the relations between people, and the movie is a bit too long. However, the images of Kenya are wonderful, and I can feel the splendor and charm of the original work, which more than compensates for the short-comings of this movie.

The original Out of Africa is basically the author’s autobiography. The heroine in the movie (born in 1885) is adventurous, from an affluent family, and unsatisfied with her life in Denmark; she marries the son of a financially struggling baron, exchanging her money for social status, and they embark to the new world of Kenya. In real life, Karen Blixen also married a Swedish aristocrat, Bror von Blixen, in 1913, and they immigrated to Kenya together the following year. Like shown in the movie, the married couple managed a coffee plantation, but the married life soon failed; after the divorce, she continued to manage the coffee plantation alone, but failed, and returned home to Denmark in 1931.

Bror (Baron Blixen), who became Karen’s husband, was born in 1886 as a Swedish noble. He was a distant relative of Karen’s. Bror had an identical twin brother, and the movie establishes that the twin brother was Karen’s lover. The twin died in a plane crash in 1917. Since all the investment for the coffee plantation was from Karen’s parents, when the divorce happened, the plantation became Karen’s property, and Bror started working at a safari hunting company. Many European aristocrats in the beginning of 20th century, backed by economic strength and the success of their nation’s imperialism, seemed to burn with the passion to start their own business; I feel it resembled the spirit of a modern entrepreneur. It is said that many of the clients of Bror’s company were British royalty and aristocrats. After he divorced with Karen, he married explorer Eva Dickson in 1936. Because Eva died in 1938, Bror returned to his home country Sweden, where he died.

After she divorced from Bror, Karen befriended Denys Finch Hatton, the son of an Earl. Denys was born in 1887 into an aristocratic family with a very notable family lineage. When he was 23 years old, he bought land in west Kenya, and started up a safari hunting company on this land with co-investors. He, too, was a noble entrepreneur like Bror, and likewise was a close associate of Berkeley Cole, another noble entrepreneur from a notable family. These four are the key people in this movie. In 1925, after Karen and Bror divorced, Denys became closer with Karen, and started splitting time between Karen’s coffee plantation and the safari company that he founded. Many of the clients for his safari company were also British royalty and aristocrats. All of the characters are young nobles and were played by popular Hollywood actors, but their performances were a little disappointing because they looked somewhat like American cowboys from a Western trying to make a fortune in the gold mines.

In the movie, Karen and Denys’s relationship collapses due to Denys not wanting to marry and because another woman appears; this seems to also be true. From 1930, Denys became close with ranch manager Beryl Markham; the two learned how to fly airplanes, and started to fly around Kenya. In the end, Denys died in a plane accident around the same time that Karen decided to close down her farm and return home to Denmark.

What is wonderful about this movie is that it vividly depicts the pioneering spirit of fearless and carefree youth from the ruling class in Europe in those days. However, the movie also simultaneously successfully depicts an omen drifting in that their privilege will not continue forever. In this movie, these youth disregard their privilege in their homeland and jump over to Africa, and they bravely try their own fate by getting their hands dirty; this suggests that imperialism was still robust at that time. The times shown here may be the last glimmer of European imperialism.

Due to the infidelity of her husband, Karen got syphilis, and she suffered from it for her whole life; in addition, the coffee plantation that she invested everything she owned into failed, but she lived without blaming anyone. The way she lived was wonderful. I feel this spirit in Babette’s Feast as well. The human nature of the author naturally comes out.

Karen observed the subtle differences between the native tribes in Kenya, such as the Kikuyu, Maasai, and Somali. Colonists in Kenya used the Kikuyu for the colonization of Kenya in those days. The Kikuyu were adapted to farming, and the chiefs of the tribes had amicable policies toward white settlers; after having their land snatched away by white people, the Kikuyu stayed there and worked as tenant farmers and maids. Also, the youth became proficient in English because of their education in mission schools. If I use Karen’s words, the Kikuyu are described as, “These natives don’t have rebellious spirits and are patient like sheep. They survived their fates without any political power or a protector. Their ability to accept their fates has allowed them to still endure it.” Unlike with the Kikuyu, the colonists didn’t trust the Somali, who had already been converted into Muslims, and were suspicious that the Somali could rebel at any time. The Maasai had not given up on the hunting lifestyle, so chose to live in isolation. In this movie, it is depicted that even the Kikuyu people fear the strange and unfamiliar Maasai.

It was the Kikuyu that led the Kenyan independence movement because of their understanding of colonists they gained through their experience and by observing them. The Kenyan independence movement had already started with the founding of the East African Association in Nairobi in 1919 by Kikuyu Harry Thuku. In 1924, the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) was founded with the youth as its core, and they confronted the colonial government and the chiefs who aligned with it; the radical movement of the KCA developed into the 1952 Mau Mau Uprising, and with this, white settlers began to evacuate. The nationalist/independence movement converged into becoming the Kenya African National Union, and Kenyan independence was achieved in 1963.

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Movies: Babettes gæstebud — Babette’s Feast (1987), Ladies in Lavender (2004)

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I watched two very similar movies in succession recently: Babette’s Feast and Ladies in Lavender. Babette’s Feast depicts a 50-year-span around the time of the Paris Commune of 1871, while Ladies in Lavender is set in Great Britain in 1936. I thought Ladies in Lavender was borrowing ideas from the very successful Babette’s Feast because the Ladies in Lavender movie was made about 20 years after the movie Babette’s Feast, and the essence of the times depicted and the overall feeling of these two movies were very similar. The impression I got from these two movies was that they depict the atmosphere of the early 20th century in Northern Europe.

After doing some background research, I found that the author of the original Babette’s Feast, Karen Blixen, was born in 1885 and passed away in 1962, while the author of the original Ladies in Lavender, William John Locke, was born in 1863 and passed away in 1930. While I wouldn’t say they are the same generation, the time that they were alive overlapped. This explains why they share similar perceptions. The original Ladies in Lavender was published in 1916, slightly earlier than when the original Babette’s Feast was published, and the Ladies in Lavender movie actually changes the setting to 20 years later than the original story. Basically, the atmosphere that is expressed by both movies is the mindset of the people in Europe during those good times; imperialism was still going strong in Europe before World War I, people were enjoying economic prosperity, the rural parts of Northern Europe were not engulfed by big political changes, and the sense of community between neighbors was still strong and people helped each other in good faith. I think both Karen Blixen and William John Locke had the feeling that such times would disappear in the near future because both of these movies seem to give an impression of fleeting times. Since I have not read the original pieces, I wish to write about the similarities and differences between the two movies.

The first similarity between these movies is that both are stories of elderly, unmarried sisters living in the same house after their father dies. The two live in a beautiful, tiny village along the North Sea. Babette’s Feast takes place in Jutland, Denmark, while Ladies in Lavender is located in the United Kingdom, but the scenery in both movies look very similar. The maid similarly goes down the hill every day with a shopping basket to buy fish from the fisherman who rides up to the beach in his boat. There is also a similar set-up where life for the sisters is very repetitive—cherishing the memories of their fathers and thankful for their peaceful life—but then a lonesome, artistic foreigner drifts into their lives (in Babette’s Feast, it is Babette, a female chef of a first-class Paris restaurant; in Ladies in Lavender, it is Andrea, a mysterious Polish prodigy violinist) and their lives suddenly become exciting, which causes the sisters to reflect on their nearly forgotten younger days.

A similarity between the authors is that Karen Blixen and William John Locke both lived a long time in Africa. William John Locke is British, but when he was 2 years old, he immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago; in 1881, he returned to his home country of the United Kingdom to attend the University of Cambridge. On the other hand, Karen Blixen is Danish, but in 1913, she married Bror von Blixen, a Swedish aristocrat related to her father’s side of the family, and they immigrated to Kenya the following year. As a married couple, they managed a coffee plantation, but the married life soon failed and ended in a divorce; in 1931, Karen returned to her home country of Denmark. The memoir she wrote of her time living in Africa, Out of Africa, was made into a movie and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Babette’s Feast won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

So then what are the differences? Since I have not read the originals, I can only compare the movie renditions, and one difference is the way the two sisters reflect on their pasts. In Babette’s Feast, the sisters do not have regret in their hearts about their past at all. There were many men who fell in love with the sisters because they were beautiful, but the sisters are still unmarried because they helped their father who had started up a church in the village, and they and all of the church-goers grew old; the sisters had made up their minds to maintain the church until they died. The sisters have no trace of avarice and don’t seek luxury, and the warm spirits of the men who fell in love with the sisters seem to be protecting them near the end of their lives. Babette, who lost all of her family when they were killed during the Paris Commune, was sent to Denmark from Paris by a man who had loved one of the sisters. Babette is thankful to be able to live with the sisters, and wants to be with the sisters until they die. Babette’s Feast depicts the calm happiness someone with a faithful heart and without greed can achieve.

In contrast, Ladies in Lavender is a story of the younger of the two elderly sisters recognizing her hidden desire for men due to the young, charming man who drifts in. The young man has feelings of gratitude for the elderly ladies who helped him when he was dying on the beach, and loves the old ladies like he loves his mother, but in the end, he carries feelings of romantic love for a woman young like himself and cannot stay in the countryside because of his ambitions for his career. The younger sister laments, “He is unobtainable. Life is unfair!!” Although others may view the feelings of this elderly lady as humorous and off-putting, from her point of view, her feelings are serious and noble.

Of the two movies, Babette’s Feast is much better, and Babette’s Feast will probably remain in movie history. In this movie, these old, but still beautiful actresses are practicing a life philosophy—one that is easier said than done—to gain happiness: not regretting, not envying, accepting, and being grateful.

In Ladies in Lavender, the elderly sisters are performed by Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. These great actresses have won Academy Awards and were granted Dame status by the Queen of the United Kingdom. However, the sisters in the original Ladies in Lavender are much younger, and the theme of the original story is a single woman in her forties—no longer young, but still a woman nonetheless—who has feelings of love triggered by a young man and pines for her lost younger days. Director Charles Dance was concerned about having Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, who are in their 70s, perform the sadness and excitation of these women in their 40s, but said this about casting the two of them: “Well, I think they can do it because these women are great actresses—like goddesses.” I think this approach to acting is sacrilege. Even an actress who is like a goddess cannot play a character in her 40s if the actress herself is in her 70s.

Since it is nearly impossible for women in their 70s to perform as women in their 40s, this movie ends up being a story of elderly women. For someone watching this movie, I think it is impossible to understand that the protagonists are in fact in their 40s. Therefore, in this movie, jealous women in their 70s try to keep a man in his 20s in their house, obstruct his contact with women of his own generation, and scheme (or perhaps I should say weakly hope) to have him stay forever. It is ironic that the director’s respect for Judi Dench and Maggie Smith resulted in the failure of this movie.

I have not read the original, but my impression of the original Ladies in Lavender is that the protagonists have remained unmarried for some reason, and that the story is about the “beauty of a transient emotional conflict” of a woman in her 40s—who is no longer young, but not old—suppressing the longing for a young man—who is not as young as her children would be, but on other hand, too young to be seen as acceptable by society. I feel that these women are single as a result of their society, perhaps because there are few suitable men since many of their generation died in the war, or there may not be many opportunities to meet people. No matter what age, there may be a feeling of yearning for a person, but with an actress in her 70s playing as a woman in her 40s, I think the movie changed the spirit of the original work. In the original stories, the backdrops are very similar, but the mindsets of the sisters are very different; however, because of the great actresses chosen for Ladies in Lavender, the movies end up looking similar.

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Movie: Hævnen – In a Better World (2011)

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The original title means “revenge” in Danish, but the English title is “In a Better World” and the Japanese translation is “To You Who Live in the Future”; the English and Japanese titles are not literal translations of the original title, but it is very interesting how they each seem to symbolize a different layer of the theme.

Anton is a Swedish doctor who works at a refugee camp in Africa (probably Sudan) and is separated from his wife Marianne living in Denmark. Their son Elias is bullied in school. One day, a boy named Christian transfers from London into Elias’s class. Christian’s father Claus, after his wife died, moved with his son to Denmark where Christian’s grandmother lives. Elias does not resist the bullying he faces, but Christian convinces him that the bullying will continue forever if he doesn’t fight back and beats up the leader of the bullies. The bullies notice this and stay away from Christian. Christian, having lost his mother, and Elias, possibly losing his father in a divorce, are drawn to each other and a strong friendship buds.

Christian and Elias witness Elias’s father Anton being hit one-sidedly by an unreasonable man. When the boys insist that he ought to retaliate, Anton warns them that, if you retaliate violence with violence, the violence will continue to grow. When he returns to Africa, Anton provides medical care to a young pregnant woman whose abdomen was cut open by the rebel army general, but the woman dies despite treatment. The general comes there seeking medical treatment for a wound. The camp’s medical staff refuses to provide medical treatment, but Anton treats him, feeling it is his duty as a doctor. After treatment, though, the general shows his arrogance and expresses contempt toward the dead pregnant woman, so eventually Anton’s rage peaks and he yells, “Get out of here!” Hearing Anton’s words, the refugees who had until now refrained from acting, out of respect for Anton, proceed to beat the general to death.

In Denmark, Christian decides to get revenge on the man who had hit Anton by blowing up the man’s car. Elias is skeptical of this act, but is drawn in and does it together with Christian. Just before the explosion, they see some strangers—a mother and her child—jog toward the car; Elias jumps out to rescue them and gets hit by the explosion. Christian is investigated by the police and, believing Elias had died, plans to throw himself to his death.

“Revenge” – The movie of this title depicts revenge and its consequences. Marianne could not forgive her husband Anton’s affair. Because of this, Anton goes to Africa which makes Elias feel sad; Elias finds comfort from Christian who helps him, and Elias ends up bombing the car with Christian. Christian believes his own father wished for the death of Christian’s mother suffering from terminal cancer and he can’t forgive his father for letting his mother die. With nowhere to direct his anger, Christian channels it into the revenge he seeks on the bully and the man who unreasonably hits people. Even though Anton disapproves of revenge, he can’t tolerate the rebel army general who was amused by cutting the abdomen of the young pregnant woman. The African husband of the woman who died beats the general to death. This movie expresses that people seek revenge when they are hurt, no matter how trivial or how brutal the act that hurt them is.

“In A Better World”— Perhaps this could be rephrased as “In an Ideal World” where everyone understands each other and there isn’t violence, but since this is only an ideal, this movie depicts the reality where people hurt each other. Or perhaps this title compares the irrational society of Sudan in a war to Denmark which is said to be the most calm and peaceful society among European nations; perhaps it wishes to draw attention to the violence that lurks within the peace of Denmark in various other forms. Do we fight violence with violence? Ignore it? Tolerate it? Or is there a better method? This movie ends without offering an answer.

“To You Who Live in the Future”— Adults say that violence is wrong, but perhaps this is hypocritical. Adults have their hands full dealing with their own problems. Looking at these adults, we hope that the next generation lives differently.

The strongest feeling I got from this movie was, “We don’t know what comes next in life.” There are only a few characters in this story, but at least six people nearly died. The mother and child who by chance were jogging near the car; Elias who protected them; Christian who was about to jump to his death if Anton hadn’t saved him; the bully that was punished by Christian; and Anton, having gained the animosity of the rebel army and angering the unreasonably violent man who hit him, could have been killed. Parents try very hard to raise children. However, children drift away in unexpected directions when their parents have their hands full every day with hard work and their own troubles and don’t have time to think of their children. Fortunately, these family and friends don’t die, but this movie shows how small mistakes, no matter how small, could lead to tragic consequences.

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