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I have recently watched this excellent Dannish movie on satellite channel.Regrettably I was deprived of the opportunity to understand dialogs as there was neither English translation nor subtitles. Nevetheless, that language barrier had not prevented me from understanding the essence of the movie and conversely watching this movie in Dannish emphasized scenes regarding alcoholics, contradictions and attitude towards lonely poverty-stricken generally in Europe and particularly in Denmark. The problem of solitude is pivotal in this movie. Loneliness kills us faster that whatever disease. The movie is full of sadness and sympathy. I recommend everybody to watch it.

I was very skeptical when I first went to see this movie, I have never been a fan of political movies or movies with an overstated "message". This film however, proved to be neither. This is a refreshingly unsentimental portrayal of one of the members of society that we all would prefer to ignore. The main character, Kaj, is a wellfare client with no prospects, he once had a job and was making a life for himself, but now he is a broken down alcoholic with a genuine but thinly-veiled deathwish. He is masterfully portrayed by Jesper Christensen who, deservedly, won both the Bodil and Robert awards for his performance. Enter a woman who says she is his daughter and suddenly his world becomes complicated. What is so great about this film is that it never wallows in pity and heartfelt sympathies for its protagonists and neither does it become a political manifesto about the sufferings of the lower classes. This is ultimately a movie about a man, a man who may have made some wrong decisions in his life but nonetheless a human being like the rest of us. Per Fly spent a lot of time with people whose life resembles that of the characters in order to achieve a high level of authenticity. As a result the setting of the film is thoroughly believable and the characters equally so. This is the first film in Per Fly's trilogy about the classes in Denmark, the second movie about the upper class premiers this week in Denmark and the third, about the middle class will begin preproduction shortly.

This Danish masterpiece revels the story of a drunk alcoholic living in the suburbs of Copenhagen. The film represents the underclass of the Danish welfare society and is the 1st of Per Fly praised trilogy.

Kaj is an alcoholic living on the money the Danish state is providing him. Him and his friends spend their time drinking beer at a public bench. One day Kaj's life turns upside down when a young lady and her child moves in next to him.

The movie shows the life of a person fighting with depression and addiction. Subjects as social inheritance, compassion, honor and shame play a significant role in the movie.

The acting of Kaj is done by Jesper Christensen and it's remarkable trustworthy. One of the best performances I've ever seen. The story of Kaj is interesting and sad. It revels the story of a man who lost his track in life and how this affects others around him. It gives perspective on how people differently are dealing with shame, honor and love. It shows a person who have lost his purpose with life and how drinking became his only solution to deal with it. However behind the trashy clothes and smell lies a great person with honor, love and passion.

Here's a comment to this Norwegian Øysten guy! To me it sounds more like you have a problem with Danes in general and are just using the movie as an excuse to utter some very stupid remarks about Danish movies. You sound like a poor fellow with a self esteem problem. It's not our problem that Norway is not exactly the capital of film making right now. During the last 10 years or so Danish films have had an impressively high level of quality. Sure, there have been some not very good and some very bad movies, but the general level is high. If you take a look at the over-exposed American movies it's only a low fraction of those that are even worth mentioning and yet they are still dominating the cinemas everywhere, also in Denmark. Of course, the success of Danish films has made the fraction of American movies decrease a bit which is a very positive thing. In the 80's we excelled in extremely bad comedies so the last 10 years have been a giant leap forward. You can say what you want about the Dogma95 concept but it resulted in a series of good movies and a lot of fruitful discussions about film making in general. Now, Dogma95 has seized to exist (it was only intended to be officially "running" for 10 years) which is probably also a good thing because otherwise the concept could end up as a parody of itself. Dogma95 caused a little stir in the movie industry and rightfully deserves a note in movie history. It's like Lars Von Trier himself: You can love or hate him, but you cannot possibly ignore him.

Brilliant movie. Jesper Christensen puts his soul into this part as Kaj, who drinks so much, he's dying. Suddenly his daughter appears, who he has not seen since she was about 4 years, so she can't recognize him. She has a son now, and a violent husband. Kaj just hangs out with the locals on a bench, drinking beers and stronger stuff. He's sunken so low, he's negative towards everything and everybody. But now, where he has a grandson, he wants to pull himself up - to live again. But is it too late? It's so great to watch the similar reality these actors/actresses has put in their roles. Jesper Christensen really deserves some important awards for this part. I also enjoyed Halfdan E.'s score very much.