The Hunt

2013 Top Ten List

December 27, 2013 By Thelma 3 Comments

Dern, Forte in black and white (Photo Credit Paramount Pictures)

I am notoriously ambivalent about top ten lists but I compiled one for the lovely folks at IndieWire and figured I’d share it with you. They also invited me to sound off on something I noticed in 2013, and those short comments follow the list:

1. Nebraska

2 Stories We Tell

3. The Hunt

4. Before Midnight

5. Frances Ha

6. The Broken Circle Breakdown

7. Inside Llewyn Davis.

8. Blackfish.

9. Dallas Buyers Club.

10. American Hustle

The IndieWire folks also asked me for a random comment about 2013, and I came circling back to my thoughts following this year’s New York Film Festival. Although I often write about women in film, and pine for more women directors, I found inspiration in the work of a number of male directors with an independent spirit. What I wrote to Senior Critic Eric Kohn and company was:

The most notable trend for me coalesced out of the New York Film Festival and included films mentioned above and some that are being held. It’s the vibrant resurgence of the American independent maverick director, from Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” to the Coens’ “Inside Llewyn Davis” to Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight” to Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” and Spike Jonze’s “Her.” I would also include Jim Jarmusch’s return to form with “Only Lovers Left Alive,” to open in 2014. I cannot really wrap my head around why James Gray’s brilliant period drama with Joaquin Phoenix, “The Immigrant,” has not been raised up as it should. It is one of my very favorite films of 2013 – and yet it has not opened theatrically.

Critic’s Pick: ‘The Hunt’

July 15, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Must-See Movies Beyond the Blockbusters

A kindergartner kisses her teacher on the lips in the school playroom. Taken aback by the unexpected intimacy, the teacher nonetheless sets her straight: little girls do not kiss grown men on the lips. Then a little boy interrupts to initiate a pillow fight. Ashamed, confused, rejected, the little girl disappears: a woman scorned.

In Thomas Vinterberg’s devastating Danish drama that little pebble tossed in a pond creates big ripples for the small community in which little Klara (Annika Wedderkopp) and her teacher Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) live. For Lucas, this brief moment that reflects the passionate love little girls sometimes harbor for mature men changes his life and his relationship to his tight-knit hamlet forever.

When the news flows from the child to the headmistress to the parents to the parents of all the children, social services gets involved and interrogates Klara. She knew how to kiss a man, but not how to answer adult questions about an act she can’t articulate. In this process of trying to codify behavior that isn’t cut-and-dry, the movie’s key theme is revealed: how civilized society has a hard time reconciling acts that unfurl in shades of gray.

With unwavering conviction, Mikkelsen (NBC’s “Hannibal”) underplays his role as a recently divorced teacher who having lost his job at a school for older children, now finds himself making do in early childhood education. Sure, he’s ruggedly handsomer than your typical guy next door, but Mikkelsen, who won best actor for this role at the Cannes Film Festival, disappears into this character. Lucas is an ordinary man, trying to keep contact with the teenage son now living with his mother, to start a new relationship, to find meaning in the routines of work and daily life.

As local hysteria builds, the rational Lucas becomes stymied by an unspeakable situation that he cannot solve through socially-acceptable means. And so his frustration fuels his anger, a powerful emotion he doesn’t know how to handle, because what use does a civilized man have for anger?

Vinterberg, who directed “A Celebration” and founded the Dogma collective with Lars von Trier, uses a sharp cinematic knife to cut to the core of the matter: that the human heart can never be entirely civilized and, ultimately, each man is alone with his fate.

Despite its topical theme, “The Hunt” couldn’t be more different from a “Lifetime” issue movie. Is there child abuse in the world? Yes. But is the interaction between Lucas and Klara child abuse? And when does the societal machine in place to protect the innocent become the instrument of persecution? Audiences will be unraveling these provocative questions long after they leave the theater.

Bottom Line: A Danish teacher learns a kiss is not just a kiss, and Mikkelsen merits an Oscar

Yahoo! Interview: Mads Mikkelsen talks following Anthony Hopkins’ bloody footsteps as TV’s ‘Hannibal’

April 5, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Mads Mikkelsen (Photo by Joel Ryan)

Last fall, I talked to Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, 46, about his romantic role in the 18th-century romance “A Royal Affair,” (opening today) the Danish entry for Best Foreign Film. Despite his high profile in Scandinavia — and a standout role as the Bond villain Le Chiffre in “Casino Royale” — Mikkelsen’s career has reached a new high this year. He won best actor honors at Cannes for “The Hunt” (out this summer) and he has the title role in “Hannibal,” which premiered last night.

While in “A Royal Affair,” Mikkelsen plays a doomed hero; he’s equally adept at playing villains. Enter Hannibal Lecter, the TV series. The NBC show is set in contemporary America. It takes place before the FBI arrests Lecter for his serial crimes. “That was a nice shift of gear for me,” said Mikkelsen of being cast in an American TV series. “Like wow, why not stick with something for a long time and see how it goes?”

Certainly Anthony Hopkins, who won a Best Actor for playing Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs,” throws a big shadow over the character. “You can’t avoid that,” agreed Mikkelsen. “He made it iconic and for a good reason. He’s absolutely outstanding in that character. We cannot move away totally from the fact that he is what he is, if not a little decadent then at least a man full of taste. But this takes place before he’s captured. Before anyone knows what he is.”

Mikkelsen offered a thumbnail of the plot, which is a prequel. “Lector is hired to help Will Graham [Dancy], who is a genius FBI profiler. But unfortunately Will suffers from too much empathy. It means he cannot deal with the cases. He’s putting himself in the shoes of the killers and he cannot handle that situation. So, the FBI hires me to help him deal with his job.”

Big mistake, right? “Right,” Mikkelsen continued, “I’m a psychiatrist. And all of a sudden I find myself in this candy store where I love being in the middle of every investigation that comes in. It means I can do pretty much what I want. I can manipulate the cases that Will’s running. I can get away with anything.”

Does this Lecter commit murders or just solve cases? “There’s a lot of solving cases and I do eat stuff occasionally,” Mikkelsen said. “A man’s gotta eat.”

For the full article go to Yahoo! Movies.

TIFF Countdown – 6 Days – Movie Trailer “The Hunt”

August 31, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

The movies of Danish Director Thomas Vinterberg (“The Celebration”) are like an empathetic yet unsparing novel — he sets his sights on an extended family or a community and he parses them with a surgeon’s precision. And through that closely observed human behavior, his movies become universal. Here, in what I’d call “We Need to Talk About Klara,” a reference to “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” a kindergartner accuses her teacher of exposing his willie. And the close-knit rural community unravels with accusations false and true. At its core, as the accused teacher, is the brilliant actor Mads Mikkelson, who is also in TIFF’s “A Royal Affair.” He won best actor honors at Cannes this year, and will be honored at Telluride along with Marion Cotillard for “Rust & Bone.” He’s a cross between Viggo Mortensen and Ciaran Hinds — intellectual, physical, sexy. I’m calling a best actor nomination for Mikkelson now.