Du forsvinder

Trine Dyrholm's husband embezzled 12 million kroners from his school. Nikolas Kaas is the husband who stole the money. But he had a brain tumor. Is he liable? Are we all products of our brain chemistry? Do we have free will or is everything determined by the synapses in our brains? The tumor was removed, but his behavior is still erratic. Bernard, Michael Nyquist, is Frederick's lawyer. His wife was terribly brain damaged in a car accident.

Frederick's Impulse control was lost by the frontal lobe tumor. Frederick's son said in court that the tumor had made his dad more fun, like a friend. The sum stolen was large and it took a complicated set of moves to get it. How could he be impaired? The opening shots of a reckless Frederick driving too fast on a narrow curvy road almost killing people does show impairment. Then an epileptic seizure causes a fall. He was impaired. Dryholm gives a star performance, but is she reliable? There are no clear answers, but that is exactly the point. This film is masterful in the depths it was able to investigate and still be a fascinating viewing.

''Du Forsvinder'' is a Danish production, directed by Peter Schønau Fog and starring a pretty heavy cast of top Scandinavian authors such as Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Trine Dyrholm and the late Michael Nyqvist. Frederic is a headmaster who is accused of embezzling his own school's funds in order to invest them -unsuccessfully- in various ventures. Frederic claims that by the time the crime was committed, he was suffering from orbitofrontal syndrome, a psychiatric disease which includes symptoms like instinctive disinhibition (hypersexuality, hyperphagia and urinary behaviour disorders). The patient of this syndrome is distractable, impulsive, euphoric and unable to abide by social rules. This problem is caused by a tumor on Frederic's brain which is diagnosed after an accident causing skull fractures. The story is narrated by alternatively showing the courtroom procedure of Frederic's case from the beginning until the final verdict and intermittent flashbacks which help the viewer to comprehend the emotional dimension of the film's characters as well as their motives for certain actions. The director focuses almost exclusively to the husband-wife-lawyer triad and their, sometimes complex, relationships between them. The movie raises some interesting questions regarding the subject of free will vs. deterministic neurophysiology and brain chemistry, as well as portraying the struggle of Frederic's family facing an illness which changes a person's demeanor in such a profound way that even his closest relatives, literally, can't recognize them. The performances are great, as expected by such a shining cast and in the end, ''Du Forsvinder'' manages to shake and oblige the reader to think a bit harder about fundamental questions concerning his own existence. Danish cinema continues to produce engaging films. My precise rating is 3,5/5.

Try to imagine Ingmar Bergman directing a movie thought out by Alain Resnais! Pretty hard, right? But not after watching this movie. Its digging that deep into the human condition, but also the science behind it. The movie succeeded in making a satisfying whole out of what seems to be opposites: empathy and verfremdung, fiction and facts, science and imagination, real life and theory.

A lot of food for thought here and glowing performances, solid direction and a mind-bending, intelligent screenplay.

Well done!

Watching and afterwards discussing "You disappear" with a friend, this became a mind blowing experience for me. At first everything seemed like a mess, but then my brain started to make an order out of things. It began to piece everything together into a story. When the film was over I had a really strong idea of what film I've been watching, but when I talked to my friend I realized that he had a completely different experience of what the story was. I think this is one of the points of the film. We are our brains. Our brains perceive the world different. I've never watched a film like this before. What it does to you, does it really well, which makes it a masterpiece for me. For me this film is taking filmmaking into new territory. It's a film about how YOU think.

The story had the potential to make a really good film.

Unfortunately this realisation of it has some serious flaws. One technical is that the monologue/commenting sound track sounds VERY much like someone reading of a paper. I have no idea if the director or the actor is to blame, if you see this in a foreign language with subtitles you MIGHT not be bothered by it.

A few of the attempts done to dramatize the story, unfortunately destroys a crucial plot element. It is only a few scenes (three!), and small alterations from explicit to subtle or omissions of the scenes would have solved it, but as is it completely destroys the main plot IMHO....

Many characters are portrayed fine by the actors, unfortunately this does not include the leading female role...

SOME parts of the film are really good, and others really really bad, so I ended giving it a (sub)mediocre grade...