Reconstruction

"Reconstruction" was an excellent movie. Some have renounced it for its little tricks. Shame on them. While the little tricks themselves weren't impressive, they contributed to the film's ideas. Maria Bonnevie was enchanting. Interestingly, when I left the theater, I felt as though I knew (and perhaps loved) Aimee even though she was a construction, a fiction about whom next to nothing was revealed. In this manner, Alex and I bonded although there is no Alex. This movie was something that viewers can feel. I loved the skepticism. I enjoyed belong dazzled by the beauty only to have it taken away. Was it ever there? There is an honesty in "Reconstruction" that is rare in cinema. This movie wasn't especially subtle in its nihilism, which was fine. Anything more subtle would have been wasted on many, maybe even me. Who knows?

I saw this movie at the London Film Festival, introduced by Boe the director and the beautiful Bonnevie, the lead actress. Boe is a graduate of the Danish film school and, as you might expect, the film is packed with movie references from Bergman to Hitchcock via Lynch. I hope the movie picks up a UK distributor as a second viewing is needed to understand the movie fully. On one viewing alone, this is an intelligent, intriguing and thought provoking movie with an excellent sense of time and place (Copenhagen, the present, even though no-one seems to have a mobile phone!), clever cinematography and editing and good performances. Boe creates a vision of Copenhagen as a labyrinthine, alien jungle where your front door may disappear and your friends have never seen you before.

Highly recommended

"Reconstruction" is overt about its style from the first minute when a deep-voiced narrator cautiously introduces the audience to the story and the narrative form. From then on, and until the narrator returns at the very end, we are cast into a complex and difficult drama set in a big city environment filmed in stunning craft and style. Copenhagen has rarely been seen as interesting, and in an odd sense charming, as here.

This is not an expensive film - the Director's Cut entity behind the film was designed specifically to produce good films on even lower budgets than are the norm in Denmark - but its appearance is delightful and intriguing with its sometimes bright, sometimes dark and often grainy cinematography, additional effects of occasional written identifications of characters and locations, and classic-style title design.

The story sees a young man captured by the meeting with a woman different than, but resembling his usual girlfriend, and struck by existential doubt when he finds himself a stranger to those he thought he knew. The plot is impossible to grasp completely, at least at first sight, but sufficiently immediate for the beholder to like it and be taken in by it. To me, the lack of answers is a bit over the top and causes me to cut my IMDb rating for the film to 8, but with the strong support for David Lynch films and other similar works in recent years I am probably in the minority on that point.

Danish Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Swedish-Norwegian Maria Bonnevie are both extraordinary, Kaas in the antagonist role of Alex and Bonnevie in a rare double part as the different, but similar Aimee and Simone. A repeated scene in a bar in which Aimee and Alex meet is a particularly fine example of the precise and strong performances. The fine Danish actors Nicolas Bro and Malene Schwartz are the most noteworthy of the additional cast.

Ambition is Christoffer Boe's middle name, but he lives up to any and all expectations Danish experts may have had to him since he graduated from the National Danish Film School in 2001. He has already been compared to another renewer of Danish film, Lars von Trier, and while I am reluctant to compare this first-time feature director to an established international star, I do think "Reconstruction" bears a stronger sense of place through its use of locations and the plot's connection to them, a superior depiction of relationships between people, and sometimes simply a more profound joy of storytelling than in any of Trier's work.

In Copenhagen, the photographer Alex (Nicolaj Lie Kaas) is the boyfriend of Simone (Maria Bonnevie) and the Swedish painter Aimee (Maria Bonnevie) is the wife of the writer August Holm (Krister Henriksson). When Alex meets Aimee in a bar, they have one night stand and falls in love for each other. However, on the next days, Alex is forgotten by his girlfriend and friends, and sees his world vanishing and his romance with Aimee re-initiating.

"Reconstruction" is an intriguing and surrealistic romance that follows the school of David lynch. All the characters are needy of love, and one possible interpretation (actually my interpretation) for the plot is that August is writing his novel inspired in the needy of his wife an muse Aimee that feels lonely with his constant absence due to his lectures and meetings with his editor Monica. He develops and affair of the character Aimme with the also fictional Alex, a man that has difficulties to commit with and believe in love, being hard for him to say "I love you" to Simone. When Alex meets Aimee, he leaves his past relationship behind but it is hard for him to believe in the love of Aimee and he loses her, and the magic of their love is never accomplished. If the viewer is seeking an original screenplay raising many questions without much explanation and open to interpretation, supported by great performances and wonderful cinematography and music score, he or she will certainly love this little gem. Last but not the least, Maria Bonnevie is a very pretty and seductive woman. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Reconstrução de um Amor" ("Reconstruction of a Love")

"Reconstruction" is a clever, European take on "Unfaithful" where an older husband uses literary intellect instead of violence to attempt "The Revenge of the Cuckold."

But we have no idea how much is real or imagined or roman a clef or the character of the author is identifying too much with his alter ego, as we are told from the outset that what we will be seeing is the magic of the storyteller or puppeteer, watching as he manipulates his characters, trying out different situations in different drafts of a novel, erasing and playing out different scenarios of chance and choice, where art replaces the memory science of "Code 46."

I don't think I was the only audience member, however, who was rooting instead for the tall, dark, handsome young man as Nikolaj Lie Kaas has captivating chemistry with Maria Bonnevie (and I feel really foolish that I couldn't tell from either the film or the Danish credits until I looked at the IMDb listing that she plays both the jilted girlfriend and the adulterous wife).

The author makes some lame justifications about women needing love and men accidentally falling into it, or some such, that doesn't quite make sense and the film is supposed to be illustrating the point that a man has to learn about hurt as a price to be able to love. The author's self-understanding I suppose is illustrated by him reading his book's dedication to his wife in a desperate plea for her to forgive him all his inattention, etc. as he needs her for his art, so she shouldn't look for passion elsewhere.

But we're left more with the very powerful visuals of the different versions of how he imagined her possible affair could have started (a la "Brief Encounter") and its ramifications or concluded, and the feeling that the older guy was a smug deus ex machina.

In the things one can learn from the movies department: we also get a nice tour of Copenhagen-- people can smoke anywhere, even on the subway, and do, constantly; restaurant bathrooms have real terry cloth towels; the Hilton is really luxurious; Danes and Swedes don't seem to exchange cell hone numbers; and, like in "Italian for Beginners," Danes seem to think of Italy as the place to go for romance.