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?

Is this a true, fictional narrative, or is it the figment of the fictional writer's imagination? If that sounds contradictory, then it gives you some inkling about the substance – or lack thereof – of this most confusing and yet most intriguing film.

Is this a film about filming a narrative? Is it a film about two narratives – one real fiction, one imaginary fiction? Or, is it simply a film designed to act as a metaphor for the total uncertainty about human relationships? Perhaps, it's all three... or simply an illusion?

As it unfolds, we meet a very confused young man, Alex (Nikolaj Lei Kaas) who seems to be in love with the same woman who exists in two different realities and, yet, who co-exist in the same city. On the one hand, Alex is associated with Simone (Maria Bonnevie) definitely and yet, he meets another woman, Aimee (again, Maria Bonnevie), who looks exactly like Simone, in another part of town.

Whereas Simone is definitely single, Aimee is apparently married to August, a writer who is in town to give some lectures on the art of writing. At the same time, August is also trying to finish his novel that is a love story, but he's having trouble trying to decide what "the young man" of his story should do – and he tells Aimee about his dilemma while they sit in their hotel room.

So, while August is discussing the progress of his narrative with his publisher, Monica (Ida Dwinger), young Alex is roaming all over the city trying to understand how it is that both women appear to know him for some of the time, and at other times, he appears to be a stranger to them. Frantically, he rushes from café, to a bar, to a restaurant, to another bar, desperately trying to come to grips with his concept of his reality – which, oddly enough, doesn't appear to jive with the reality of anybody that Alex thinks he knows...

Totally confused now? Well, you should be, because I think Reconstruction is an experimental film that tries to show just how confusing every person's sense of their own reality must be – not only for each person, but to others around them also.

You think you really, really know your girlfriend, your wife, your boyfriend, your husband, your lover? This film, I think, forces you to reflect (no pun intended) upon that existential problem, a very real problem for every living person, whether or not we know it. The camera work is also experimental, and some of it is quite original in its construction. You'll know what I mean when you see it – that is, if you're prepared to watch it.

Definitely not a film for action fans or the 'braindead'.

Essentially the story of a novelist who imagines a young man, named Alex, as the protagonist of his rather existentialist novel, Reconstruction blends the joins between two separate realities (the novelist's imaginary context makes up the third). Director Christoffer Boe basically omits any detail that would add distinction to his construct, instead keeping everything vague and non-committal enough to string the audience along. The glue that holds his construction together is Maria Bonnevie, cast as Everywoman in the men's imaginations (Aimee the wife and muse of the Phillip Roth style novelist; Simone, the young protagonist's girlfriend). Ms. Bonnevie displays a subtle sense of the difference between playing a woman and playing a romanticised view of a woman. As the wife she is mostly quietly dissatisfied, as the romanticised object of affection she is often lost, promiscuous and dependent on men; her Simone is somewhat less clearly drawn but is also a bit of a red herring to the main narrative. She has a beautiful, strong featured, cinematic face that she uses to great effect with accomplished neutrality that works particularly well in this context.

While Reconstruction has some clever, sometimes startling imagery-particularly in the shadowy motif of a figure in freefall-none of the characters emerge much beyond stick figures or chess pieces in Boe's elaborate yet superficial exploration of what, one presumes, are matters of the heart. Nicolaj Lee Kaas, as Alex, makes a rather charmless protagonist; unlike Bonnevie, Kaas seems inexplicably aware of his personal reality in the context of the novelist's imagination, thus it would seem that in Boe's world view there are no romanticised notions of maleness. Kaas is compulsive and promiscuous but is never given the opportunity to explore his predicament much beyond the director's shallow concept. Boe's attempts to play the humour of his Kafkaesque, ‘Alex in Wonderland' scenario fall flat, revealing the shaky foundation of the entire enterprise-it isn't sufficiently compelling to engage us in Alex's fate. Nor anyone else's, for that matter.

Reconstruction is most likely to appeal to younger, less experienced filmgoers for whom the bait and switch narrative techniques will seem more substantial; otherwise the film plays out with the opaqueness of an extended, overlong perfume advert. For all its elegance, the inclusion and reliance on Barber's overused Adagio feels like a major cheat; better that the narrative itself provoked an emotional response instead of the orchestra. Boe is a young filmmaker who may be one to watch but a certain maturity of purpose is in order. That said, Reconstruction is a major winner for the Copenhagen Board of Tourism.

"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")