Denmark – Podcasting Them Softly

The Scandinavians really seem to like their grim, chilly serial killer procedurals, The Chestnut Man being the latest Netflix offering from Denmark that gets about as grim, nasty and dark as these kind of narratives ever do. It’s a bit of a jumble to be honest, needlessly overstuffed with characters, subplots, hairpin turns, red herrings, dead ends and asides. As the story opens, police in a rural town outside Copenhagen discover a string of ruthless murders, each crime scene eerily decorated with a little figurine made from chestnuts. That’s their main clue going into an investigation involving a dozen different cops, social workers, a coroner, a bunch of old sealed records dating back to foster homes and adoptions and so many moving parts and dense plot content it made my head spin. I’m sure the story is in fact a concise series of events that check out logically and the reason I got so lost was because I binged this entire thing on a night where I was spectacularly exhausted and just could not focus. I will say that this production has some gorgeous spooky Fall vibes, they seem to have shot in autumn, which makes sense for a killer that needs a constant supply of chestnuts I suppose, but there are some truly breathtaking overhead shots of seasonal forests all steeped in golden brown and auburn hues. There’s also some razor sharp, terrifying suspense that’s extremely well orchestrated and effectively scary as well. Sometimes the material gets oppressively dark and so bleak it can be off putting, there are themes of child abuse that are directly depicted, and the murderer himself is one heinous motherfucker who doesn’t discriminate one bit in victim selection or brutal methodology, so just bring an iron lined stomach for this one. It’s got great atmosphere, thrills n’ chills that mostly work and it’s a quick six episode binge, but I almost feel like it could have been a two and a half hour feature film and in doing so, strip away a lot of the excess narrative clutter because at times I felt like I needed a big pinup board with photos of all the characters in relation to each other, just to keep track.

-Nate Hill

Alcohol and the culture, customs and traditions surrounding it have permeated society to a saturation point over the years (cinema included), whether we want to admit it or not. I myself am a bit of a self proclaimed lush, and as such I always gravitate towards films that tackle the issue head on, whether the context be cautionary, celebratory, purely unbiased anthropological study or other. Beerfest, Leaving Las Vegas, Flight, Barfly, 28 Days, A Star Is Born. They’re as varied and illuminating as in any sub-genre stable and now we have Thomas Vinterburg’s Another Round, one of the best films of the year and one that manages to do a carefully calibrated dance between comedy and tragedy while showing us the shortcomings, shattered dreams and collective woes of four high school teachers from Denmark, with the focus resting primarily on Mads Mikkelsen’s Martin, an introverted, emotionally stunted man who was perhaps not always this way, but the years have made it so. He and his three buddies decide during a booze soaked night out to follow in the footsteps of an unconventional philosopher who says that any human being will fare better in life with an average of 0.5 blood alcohol level… 24/7. This little experiment proves invigorating at first when each of them finds themselves a little looser, a little more effervescent in both their work and personal lives… until such an endeavour inevitably careens towards a downward spiral, for each in gravely different ways. The thing is, alcohol is a bandaid, not a magic curative elixir for all problems psychological and interpersonal. One can use at first, even at as benign a level as this experiment suggests, but the incremental nature of how it affects our bodies soon takes control and self destruction can be imminent. We see Mikkelsen’s already inert marriage detonate like a dying star, his younger colleague can’t act appropriately around his wife and young children anymore and their older friend seems to suffer from some kind of repressed pain that he and the film are too scared to even unpack, it’s so bad. I don’t want anyone to label this as a ‘midlife crisis’ film because that’s a cheap and patronizing term; anyone at any point in their life can not be okay and their struggles shouldn’t be relegated to labels like that. These are simply four human beings who naively experiment with alcohol and realize that not only will excessive use *not* fix their problems, it will emblazon them further into the forefront of their psyches and force out a fierce reckoning from each, whether they’re ready for it or not. Some are, some aren’t, and that’s the beauty of this narrative. Mikkelsen has never been better, he’s got that observant subtlety we’ve come to know him for but there’s also a vivacity and deepest emotional burn to the work that is a new and mesmerizing formula from him as an artist. Also he’s rocks some dance moves I never expected him to have in a joyous, blessedly cathartic ‘jazz ballet’ sequence near the end that nails the film’s desire to be thoroughly bittersweet but ultimately uplifting. Like the best cocktails, the mixture has to be in utmost equilibrium or the flavour is off. The same can be said for a film that wants to bridge genres or simply evoke multiple complex emotions at once: Another Round is jubilant, compassionate, loving yet doesn’t shy away from the dark, bleak and dysfunctional corners of life, using alcohol as a narrative avatar to unearth what was already there in its human characters. Masterful film.

-Nate Hill