EXIT: MADS MIKKELSEN ON THE RUN, MORE FILM AT NORDICANA

When I wrote about the Danish film A Hijacking I suggested that the theme of business ethics and its relation to social morality was part of many recent Scandinavian films, among them Exit. In A Hijacking the conflict was between a businessman's social responsibility to the crew of his vessel and his ingrained desire to 'win' the negotiation. As it happened, I had just seen Exit earlier the same day at the Nordicana festival, and though the two films weren't part of a double-feature, the connection was obvious.

Exit begins Mads Mikklesen explaining, in voice-over, how negotiating is all about knowing your opponent's weakness, and that every opponent has one. The movie opens with Mikklesen, as Thomas Skepphult, and his partner in a firm called Nova Investment forcing out the man whose family's firm it had been, because he has done something that crossed their ethical boundary while completing a deal with another firm. The ousted man, Morgan Nordenstrole, goes back to his office and blows his head off with a shotgun.

Seven years later, Nova is trying to exit that deal, and cash in their profits, but another investor, the super slick Gabriel Mork, holds them to ransom on theexit. At the same time, Thomas' mentor and partner, Wilhelm, announces he wants to retire, and shows Thomas a hidden compartment in his safe, in which is a tape which Thomas believed had been destroyed. That night, Wilhelm is murdered, and because his death would save Thomas millions on the price of buying him out, Thomas becomes the top suspect and is arrested. But while trying to contact his lawyer, someone else gets on the line, and Thomas realises he's been set up, and nothing is as it seems.

On the one hand, Exit is a complicated, sometimes repetitive, innocent man on the run film, in the tradition of Tell No One or Headhunters, and it wouldn't surprise me if it hadn't hadn't provided some inspiration for Jo Nesbo's tale. As with the Harlan Coben novel (and the French film) Thomas is lucky to have a professional to call upon for help, in his case a cousin who is some sort of security operative, and helped also by the insane incompetence of the Swedish police. Detective Malm, played with a wonderful sneer of suspicion by Ia Langhammer, has decided the case from the first, and after that point, no amount of killing, shooting, fire, or kidnap can distract the cops' attention. Which is great if you're an accused murderer on the run. Especially one played by Mikklesen, who is fast becoming the most sado-masochistic character in movies: public-school boy perverse torturing James Bond (and getting his come-uppins, so to speak) in Casino Royale, getting beaten to a pulp more here than in The Hunt, bloodier than Valhalla Rising.

It also never seems to occur to the police to see whether Thomas is still running his business, which he is trying to do using his assistant Fabian von Klerking as a go-between. Eventually Fabian (Alexander Skarsgard) has to go to Mork (whose name, at least in English, suggests murk and angel at the same time; John Rabaeus, playing him, is excellent, and looks a bit like a classier version of William Forsythe) and Mork, it turns out, did the nasty to Fabian's father. But he overcomes his distaste out of loyalty to Thomas, and this impresses Mork. It also suggests that there is something about the aristocracy, the old Sweden, as signaled by Fabian, that is not only worth admiring but has been lost. Although I was wondering if the burned out 'P' in the 'Prince' sign in the inevitable seedy bar Thomas is forced to visit was some sort of comment on the Swedish royal family.

As I said, the plot involves some repetition (here review imitates life), and a good deal of twisting. Thomas repeats the same sort of gambit a few times, and indeed there are two escapes via powerboat, which is stretching it for any movie not set in Hong Kong. Questions of loyalty and trust are paramount, from Wilhelm's wife Louise, to Thomas' own wife Anna (played with some relish by Kirsti Eline Torhaug). Samuel Froler is excellent as the psychopathic villain, and even better is his henchman Ahmed (Hassan Brijay) who might have walked out of one of the Pusher films

Which is one of the strongest points of Exit. At times it has that grainy darkness of 70s American crime films, and which the Pusher films share, but it is also very carefully one of the most noirish films to come from the sadly misnamed Nordic Noir pantheon. It is exceedingly dark and shadowy, and for most of the film the only light comes in scenes set in Thomas' home, where the sunlight streams in over water and through picture windows. But mostly it takes place in places where natural light never shines, or at night, or both, and that sets the mood. When the film reaches its visceral climax, it's full-scale Fall of the House Of Usher, which I found symbolic. Director Peter Lindmark has a nice visual command which helps give depth to what otherwise would be just a pacy thriller with a few too many longeurs. And when the ultimate betrayal is revealed in the final twist, it too is a shadowy picture in a reflection of a dark room. It doesn't get more noirish than that.

Exit is available on DVD from Arrow Films on 8 July

Note: This review will also appear at Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk)

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL: THOMAS VINTERBERG'S THE HUNT

Thomas Vinterberg is best known for Festen, his second feature film released in 1998 as the first production from Dogme, which he founded with Lars Van Trier. Fourteen years later, Vinterberg returns to the theme of child abuse within a tightly-wrapped part of Danish society, and again, it is with group ritual as a backdrop. In Festen, the film is about secrets that need to come out. The Hunt (Jagten in Danish), which is screened today at the London Film Festival, is about the way accusation can become the same as guilt.

In a small town in rural Denmark, Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is a former teacher, who had lost his job when the school was closed by budget cuts. His wife has left him, taking their teenaged son, and he now lives alone, working as an assistant in a kindergarten, where he is popular with the kids whom he obviously adores. He is especially good with Klara, the daughter of his best-friend Theo. Lucas' only social interaction comes with the members of his hunting club, which binds the men of the village together.

Klara seeks out Lucas when her parents don't pay her enough attention, but one day, when he attempts to distance himself slightly from her, she feels rejected and through a series of easy misunderstandings, Lucas finds himself accused of child abuse. The film is pretty much unequivocal about his innocence—though his withdrawn personality and sometimes intense anger leaves a little ambiguity—and it is perhaps at its best as the noose of accusation draws tighter and tighter around Lucas. Vinterberg details it carefully, and is helped by some small but finely judged performances, particularly by Anne Louise Hassing as Grethe, the head of the kindergarten, and (uncredited) the excellent Bjarne Henriksen (best-known here as the father in The Killing) as the specialist who comes to hear Klara's story.

False accusation of child abuse has prompted a few This is The Crucible redone for a modern era, and Lucas bit by bit finds himself an outcast, losing his job, the chance of access to his son, and driving away his new girlfriend, an outsider herself as an immigrant to Denmark working at the kindergarten. The dilemma faced by Theo (played with some relish by Thomas Bo Larsson) contrasts with the complete protective turn by his wife (Susse Wold), and what makes it work is how perfectly understandable it is. It is also helped by the perfectly pitched performance of young Annike Wedderkopp as Klara, who manages to convey beyond her innocence, the sense of powerlessness as adults take things out of control. The control of the film is superb, as it builds slowly in intensity, and the cinematography by Charlotte Bruus Christensen (below right, with Vinterberg) is superb. The Danish village is rendered warm at first, but increasingly cold and puritanical, while the surrounding countryside and its darkness seems to impinge more and more on it—the hunt, as it were, turned inward. When invisible assailants kill Lucas' beloved dog, and he buries her in a driving rain, the point could not be driven home more clearly.

Vinterberg does include a scene where the audience can actually relate to villains, those who feel they have to strike out at the evil-doer in their midst. In this The Hunt differs from, say, Mick Jackson's Indictment: The McMartin Trial, where the demarcation with James Woods, a lawyer-hero, is much stronger, and even The Crucible, where ulterior motives among the prosecutors are very much the case, and very much the core of the metaphor Arthur Miller was detailing. But despite the touch of melodrama in the film's biggest scene, which takes place in a church, at Christmas, when the rituals are maintained, it works as a catalyst.

Especially because of Mikkelsen's brilliant performance. He is on screen through virtually all of the film, and he is holding so much in he almost requires the audience make its own choice about him, whether to believe him or condemn him. This restraint contains a good deal of righteousness, and he simply refuses to accept his isolation from the community. Thus, even though he is eventually vindicated by law (luckily for him, his other best-friend, his son's godfather, is a lawyer and never doubts him), and rejoins the hunt club along with his son, we sense in many minds the stigma remains. The film ends with a hunt, and Vinterberg manages to avoid both melodrama and cliché, which works brilliantly. The Hunt is a superb piece of film-making, and it will be hard to find many better films in this year's LFF.

A ROYAL AFFAIR SHOWS DANISH POLISH

It's kind of amusing that virtually any look at a Danish film still begins with reference to Dogma, because the Danes have shown they can be adept in virtually any genre or style, in cinema or on television. Perhaps no one moreso than Nicolaj Arcel, best known outside Denmark for his screenplay adaptation of the Swedish Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (like many of his screenplays, written with Rasmus Heisterberg--they also did the Swedish TV series version) but also the director of a number of very different films, including the excellent political thriller The King's Game, and the fantastic fantasy Island of Lost Souls, possibly my favourite film at the London Film Festival a few years ago. It shouldn't come as a surprise that he should tackle the costume drama—what may come as some surprise is that, in A Royal Affair, he does it so well.

The film tells the story of Princess Caroline, brought from England as a wife for King Christian VII, and not only relegated, through her husband's childish personality and the court's disdain for her as his consort, to a position as royal non-entity, but also, because of the strict censorship imposed on the Danes by their church-led government, stopped from pursuing intellectual growth through the Enlightenment, spreading quickly through Europe. Enter Johann Streunsee, brought in as doctor to the King, and quickly becoming his confidant. Streunsee manipulates Christian into bringing the Enlightenment to Denmark, instituting countless reforms; but he also betrays his friend and patient by beginning an affair with the desperately lonely princess.

It's an intriguing mix of love story and political thriller, with very obvious echoes in the present, when reactionaries among the rich and the fundamentalists combine to try to hold back reform that might make life more free for all, and threaten their own privilege. It's helped by an extraordinarily deft bit of camerawork from Rasmus Videbaek, whose interior work in particular recalls Amadeus in its way it allows the characters the mysteries of candlelit darkness.

There's another echo of Amadeus here, in the performance of Mikkel Boe Foelsgaard as Christian, which reminded me of Jeffrey Jones' as Joseph II in that film. But Christian is a more complicated figure—an indulged child who's eccentricities have been encouraged by a court (in particular his father's widow, who wants the crown for her own son) who prefer to run the country using the King as a figurehead. The way the two stories, of personal betrayal and political change, come together, gets played out in Foelsgaard's performance, as he has to decide for himself whether or not to topple Streunsee, and imprison his own wife. You can follow his dilemma, the simple lack of fortitude, the good intentions but bad reactions, which brings the entire story into focus. At times, you can feel an intense sympathy for his lechery, and his weakness. When he signs away his own power, you feel for him, and the idea that you know this cannot have a good end cleverly undermines some of the headier moments of Enlightenment, reminding us that Streunsee himself succumbs to the lure of absolute power. Which of course he never really has.

That's e's balanced nicely by Mads Mikklesen's performance. Mikklesen brings out the character's hubris, as well as his innate nobility, he also catches on to the fact that, as with The King's Game, the film hinges on a well-intentioned protagonist not understanding how the political game is played. So too with Alicia Vikander, as Caroline. Hers is the responsibility for not letting the love story get too mawkish, not even when she is voicing the last letter to her children which frames it. Although the best comparison I could make might be with Isabelle Adjani, its a cooler, more Anglicised version. She's particularly good at bringing a English sense of female improvement to the story, as if this were a 19^th century English novel...and Harriet Walter is excellent in a cameo early on as her mother, Queen Augusta, explaining the real-politick of royal marriage to her. There is an excellent ensemble cast, particularly David Dencik as the chief reactionary and villain, Guldberg, a pious hypocrite of a type we're exceedingly familiar with these days. But the supporting figures are particularly well-drawn, especially in the ways they react to the reforms Streunsee brings—they are nominally all in favour of the Enlightenment, but they find themselves wavering as it begins to effect their privileged lives.

I knew this story through Per-Olov Enquist's wonderful novel, The Visit Of The Royal Physician, in which the issues of the Enlightenment are foregrounded. Apparently, the filmmakers wanted to use his book, but its rights have been tied up in another project which has never got off the ground. So they nominally used a Danish novel, Princess Of The Blood, billed in some quarters as an 'erotic' novel, which, like the film, takes Caroline's point of view. Interestingly, they liased with Enquist, and hired lawyers to review their script to determine just what was history, and in the public domain, and what was Enquist's invention. Although they might have satisfied the intellectual property guys, the finished film still has a lot of the feel of the Enquist novel, which is no bad thing.

But given that this is a central moment in Danish history, the story might seem to tell itself. That is where Arcel and Heisterberg have been so effective –because if the Enlightenment were to set people free, as it were, to make mistakes. Their script is up to date, and it's also classic; echoes of Hamlet as well as Jane Austen perhaps. The English flatter themselves to think only they can do costume drama—this remarkably thoughtful and entertaining film proves them so wrong. Oh, and apparently Lars von Trier did look at the script, and help with some of the editing. So you can't get far from Dogma after all.

A Royal Affair opens tomorrow (15 June) in London.