David O'ConnellIn a Better World
March 18th 2011 03:00
Danish director Susanne Bier’s films continue to disassemble families through their relentless examination of the raw emotions that surface in times of conflict. Two families are the focus of her latest work, In a Better World, but it’s the relationship formed between two schoolboys that lies at its heart, providing the impetus for a potential final act tragedy.
12 year old Christian (William Jhonk Nielsen) and his father Claus (Ulrich Thomsen) have just moved back to Denmark after the death of Claus’s wife. The intense, withdrawn Christian, whose relationship with his father has become strained, allows some of his anger to vent when coming to the defence of another student at his new school, the constantly bullied Elias (Markus Rygaard). Elias’s father Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is a surgeon who makes regular trips to Africa to assist impoverished and disease-ravaged people of the region. Back in Denmark, his domestic life is haunted by his estrangement from wife Marianne (Trine Dyrholm).
Some of the film’s best moments are the most uncomfortable to watch, especially when Anton is publicly slapped by a bullying motor mechanic in front of the boys, who have become good friends. Instead of reacting with violence he risks losing face by preferring to teach them a valuable lesson about what constitutes real courage. Standing up to such men with a purely verbal defence doesn’t initially hold much water with Christian whose internal seething is fed by this pacifism, leading to a devastating act of violence that the film’s second half inexorably builds toward.
The scenes in Africa, though lacking in subtlety, also have a significant impact thanks chiefly to Persbrandt’s work. In a gut-wrenching sequence, his character has to take a potentially fatal moral and ethical stance when confronted by the region’s evil and wounded dictator, the man responsible for raping and murdering the local populace.
Mikael Persbrandt is the true star of In a Better World
Utilising many of the leftover approaches from time spent honing her craft under the 'Dogme 95' banner, it’s hard to find fault with Bier’s aesthetic choices. From the invasive, close-checking work of regular cinematographer Morten Soborg’s – who also produced such remarkable visuals on Valhalla Rising (2009) - to the subtle contributions of Johan Soderquist’s pensive score, she creates a devoutly naturalistic worldview that throbs with a painfully real juxtaposition of emotional reactions.
Despite being utterly compelling, the greatest failing of In a Better World (2010) rests in its over-stretched final phase in which melodramatic touches thwart a summation that would like to be far more profound than it is. The catharsis, when it arrives, feels muted by overly-familiar, even trite dialogue.
The acting, as in all Bier’s films is mostly first rate, though Persbrandt stands out - he’s truly magnificent as the conflicted Anton. Only young Nielsen lets the side down somewhat, his downcast demeanour and burning intensity becoming too one-dimensional as the film progresses; his despise for his father, too, is never fully rationalised.
Despite these minor misgivings, In a Better World stands out as another very strong work from a distinctive filmmaker who after what was hopefully a solitary flirtation with Hollywood – 2007 ‘s underwhelming Things We Lost in the Fire - will continue to fall back on the instincts that have made her best work, like Brothers (2004) and After the Wedding (2006), recent milestones of European cinema.
In a Better World opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday, March 31.
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