Dark Horse

After enjoying Noi Albino I was excited to see this movie when it popped up at my local art-house cinema.

I'm rather bemused by all the positive comments on it as it's really dreadful, a totally nose-dive for the director. Whereas Noi Albino is an impressive slight and tender vision of outsider culture, Dark Horse is a bad scripted and jarring attempt to render the same kind of characters.

Primarily the major problems are that the first half is supposed to be funny and isn't, while the second half is supposed to be profound and isn't. The blur between naturalism and style makes it very difficult to engage with the movie. The style on show is accompanied by the prerequsisite "glitzy" style music of mobile phone adverts, shorthand in our culture for ditzy art school cool. The jokes in the first half are strictly of the "here's a man trying to clean a wall, oh look! the water jet spray is strong so he's stumbled backwards variety". There is a barely a genuine laugh in it.

To make things worse, the director's vision of life is hopeless limited. The main character ends up giving up messing around with his life in order to have a baby and even ends up wearing a f**king cardigan into the bargain. Talk about black and white. Meanwhile another character wanders around doing absolutely nothing for the entire movie in what appears to be some kind of bourgeous satire. I turned to my girlfriend over an hour and a quarter and asked "who is that guy again?" Not a good sign with a major character.

This film is bad on every level. Badly shot, badly scripted, good actors wasted with flimsy characters. Silly worldview. Not funny.

It's little wonder that this film disappeared completely for two years before appearing on British cinema screens. It might have been better for the director if it had disappeared altogether. He's got a big whole to climb out of now and a lot to prove in order to confirm that Noi Albino wasn't just a happy mistake...

DARK HORSE (Dagur Kári - Denmark/Iceland 2005).

"Volksne mennesker" is the second feature from Icelandic director Dagur Kári, after his much praised debut "Nói Albinói" (2003), which I haven't seen yet, but I can't wait after catching this little gem. For this film, he relocated the story from the icy coasts of Iceland to the Danish capital of Copenhagen, where we meet Daniel (Jacob Cedergren), a graffiti artist who sprays some stylish love declarations on the wall. Not his own love interests, but from others who want to surprise their girlfriends and pay him some under the counter money for it. In many ways Daniel is the working definition of the term loser. He has no money, no work, he's lazy and hasn't got a clue what going on around him ('How am I gonna be a father? I don't even know the name of the prime minister?'). He doesn't really care about anything and doesn't bother to pay the rent until he's kicked out. Above all, his social skills (more clumsy than impolite) leave a lot to be desired, but by sheer luck, charm and good looks he seems to be passing by just well.

The film is filled with many absurd but very funny conversations, that are sometimes explained through Daniel's supposed dyslexia. When Daniel drives around the city and ignores a 'no turn left' sign, he excuse to the police is: 'I didn't understand, I thought I was obliged to turn left, I'm dyslexic.'

Almost every character in the film seems to have lost it, and can be categorized from a little quirky to completely off the wall. His obese friend Roger (Nicolas Bro), nicknamed "Grandpa", works at some kind of sleep research clinic, and dreams of becoming a professional football referee. He is just as crooked as him, but in a slightly different way with a rather misplaced sense of self-righteousness and self-confidence. But one day Daniel meets the mysterious girl Franc (a wonderful performance by Tilly Scott Pedersen, I'm absolutely smitten about her), who works at a local bakery. When the two meet, she is under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms and vomits all over the floor of the bakery and gives her a ride home in his little Fiat. But he falls in love with this girl, who still lives with her twisted sex-starved mother and is practically the female version of him, going through life just as careless as he does.

Near the end the initial comedic element makes way for a more dramatic turn, when the characters have to face some real choices. In the first hour, they're all so sketchily introduced, it hard to see them as real characters. And I wasn't very impressed by the much praised 16mm black-and-white cinematography by Manuel Alberto Claro, which was kind of sloppy and inconsistent, with many scenes inexplicably down lit. But these flaws are easily forgiven, with this kind of fresh and observative writing and all these wonderful performances. Tilly Scott Pedersen's smile and her infatuating on-screen presence alone had me going till the end.

This is not just some desperately quirky indie, it's filled with wonderful characters, very funny and with a beautiful music score as well. In some scenes, the score seemed exactly the same as in the German MUXMAÜSCHENSTILL (2004). Not a perfect film, but very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to any of Dagur Kári's future work.

Camera Obscura --- 8/10

This movie is first icelandic movie I have seen. Before I entered the cinema, I had no idea what the film was about. When I exit,my feelings were so complicated that I can't find the right word. This film is fully equipped with tiny details,which makes it deeper for focused viewers.Sometimes it gets out of the borders of absurdity,you find yourself laughing unconsciously. Sometimes you feel yourself so desperate,melancholic that you freeze in your seat,not knowing what to do.To tell the truth,this is what makes a movie see-able. Techniques used in the movie are seen before but director added some new details from himself. Repetition of some scenes is like emphasizing the importance of them just like in poetry or prose. Coloured scene is great. Turning point of the movie.

really liked this movie and looking forward to see it again.

A lot of art movies are beautiful but ain't fun. Dark horse on the other hand is different. The movie is cinematographic really beautiful (a lot of the shot's could be art photo's) but besides that is a nice story mixed with some dark humor. I have a spot for movies that start out strong, and this one really had a nice opening!

The scenery reminds me of French movies from the sixties, maybe that's because the movie is not in color (though it was filmed in color), the looks of the girl, the fiat 500 he drives, the interiors they used or just because of the title poster (they lay in front of the fiat on a field). But it gives the Dark Horse something nice, all together the best movie a saw in months.

It's a shame that so few have seen this movie, it was just me and my girlfriend at the cinema and given the number of votes here on IMDb or rottentomatoes it is not very popular.

This is a welcome renewal of the Danish cinema! Kári is telling a traditional story of finding yourself in life, but in an untraditional way. First of all, it's in beautiful black & white, which really suits it. Second, he's not afraid of throwing the viewer off course by the characters' unexpected reactions to everyday events, their ignorance, naivety and way of tackling what life gives them.

It's funny, has fresh new talent (Tilly Scott Pedersen) and some oldies that does their job really well. At certain points in the movie the pace slows down and I felt the director didn't really know where to take the movie, and ends up with some unfinished stories - but then again it's maybe just one of those "figure it out yourself" stories. I really liked 'Voksne mennesker' and look forward to see more from Dagur Kári!