Prag

A full coffin shown on an airport x-ray machine. The historic beauty of Prague. A lawyer who offers his services at no cost, no strings. The handbag of a wealthy woman and its contents thrown to a crowd in a market square.

When we take elements out of context, we could make an infinite number of stories out them. Tragedy, comedy, romance. When we look at a relationship, we maybe select the details that fit a particular keyhole view. Movies generally simplify even further. To Ole Christian Madsen's credit, he at least tries to remind us that reality is rarely as simple.

Christoffer (Mads Mikkelsen - the bad guy in Casino Royale) is taking his wife Maja to Prague. Perhaps he hopes that a weekend in this romantic city will be good for them, but the underlying purpose is that his father has died there and he needs to sign some papers before the body can be brought back to Denmark. Dry humour is mixed with sadness due to language difficulties. Maja asks the hotel for an adaptor plug and they send an iron (with polite reassurances).

Miscommunication is also reflected in their relationship. They seem to get on well, but then Christoffer confronts his wife with evidence of her unfaithfulness, at the same time saying he forgives he and wants to make their fourteen-year marriage work. She doesn't think she is the one that needs to be forgiven. Christoffer's father has left him an audiocassette. They don't have a tape player and have to go to a jazz bar to hear it. Nothing is what it seems, and the situation unravels before us in a constantly unpredictable way.

Prag dissects the pain of separation, not with the shouting and screaming of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but with the equally cutting knife of toleration and flawed understanding. As Christoffer comes to terms with possibility of life without Maja, he explores the question of identity and also the sense of 'knowing' another person. How do you define someone? Their job? Their likes? Their relationship(s)? Are we the result of the things that have happened to us or the sum of the kindness we show to others. With the analytic attitude typical of his profession as a lawyer, Christoffer tries to delineate who he is to Maja but she won't play the same game - at least verbally. Fourteen years of feelings are not thrown away so easily when there is goodwill present, even in the face of what might be irrevocable breakdown. When Christoffer meets his father's ex-housekeeper, Alena, he sees some warmth and human goodness uncomplicated by the vagaries of language. At one point, we see the two of them in silhouette, feelings beautifully portrayed and uncoloured by words.

With the various languages in subtitles, we are privy to more information than any of the characters. "We're always ashamed and never good enough for the world," says Alena (in Czech). A lesson that Danish Christoffer cannot fathom.

With the Czech lawyer (tidying up Dad's affairs for nothing), there is some stumbling conversation - they have enough words between them for halting conversation. "Life is hard," he tells Christoffer. "You bend it or you break."

Prag has a more 'European' feel than much of Danish cinema. It lingers on detail, encourages the viewer to consider subtleties. Intellectually, it touches on areas of breakdowns in communication as did the more ambitious Babel, but it does so with a gentle warmth and hope in the face of adversity. For all its sadness of theme, Prag is a strangely beautiful and moving film.

Prague was a great setting to choose for this examination of an artistic woman married to a boring lawyer who specialises in bankruptcies. It's the city that symbolises some lost European past of a different scale and kind, and our couple are not visiting for pleasure: instead the hero has come to supervise the transfer of his dead father's body back to Denmark. Naturally, the wife is having a wild affair in Copenhagen with a randy, well-endowed, young artist, but she is still loyal to the father of her lovable young son, with whom the couple confer on Skype. It's a fascinating situation, and the director gets convincing performances out of the players, while the photography director does miracles with digital technology, creating a typically grey European winter in beautiful colours. The ambiguity that troubles the couple, causing them to mate passionately and repeatedly while having rows and freeze-outs, captures an essence of marriage that viewer-couples will find hard to resist.

A Danish married couple Christoffer and Maja (Mads Mikkelsen and Stine Stengade) arrives in Prague, Czech Republic to sort out the paperwork regarding the death of Christoffer's estranged father. Assisted by a local lawyer and friend of the late father (Borivoj Navrátil), the couple waits for the bureaucracy to be cleared and runs into problems with their shattering marriage and general alienation in life.

The city of Prague becomes a symbol for the forlorn state of the main characters: they don't speak the language, the Czech customs regarding the handling of the dead seem odd and overly emotional to the reserved Christoffer and the locations and people in general seem closed, stale, rude and introverted. The feelings of alienation, sadness and anger that so perfectly come to life on the serene face of Mads Mikkelsen are only emphasized by the gray weather, architecture and infrastructure that clearly have once been colourful and happy, just like Christoffer and Maja's life. The film is not entirely humourless pondering about the impossibility of happiness though: the bizarre misunderstandings with the locals provide small moments of dark humour, and the character of a beautiful pub singer Alena (Jana Plodková) shows that some human understanding is always possible even over the language barrier.

One thing I didn't care for as much was the prominence of hand-held camera-work and often outright shaky shots during close-ups. In a way the restless movements augment the feel of naturalism of the conversations, but I tend to find them more distracting than fitting. The music often sounds highly emotional, even sentimental, but ultimately works effectively, especially at the end. Despite minor complaints, Prag is over all a satisfactory meditation on the nature of relationships between humans. The key is to gain an understanding of what's important in life, to refind the lost connection to those around you – the film is not hopeless, but does not content itself with easy answers either.

Prague is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful old cities in Europe: it is also seen as clinging to many of the old traditions of the rigid life of the past - immutable, on guard, cold. It is therefore a very fitting setting for this brilliant film PRAGUE, a story written (with Kim Fupz Akeson) and directed by Ole Christian Madsen that deals with contemporary relationships, family, and the bifurcation between surface appearance and reality.

Christoffer (Mads Mikkelson) and his wife Maja (Stine Stengade) have traveled from Denmark without their young son to tend to the final paperwork following the death of Christoffer's father, a father he has not seen or communicated with for 25 years when the father left wife and son for Prague. Christoffer shows no emotion about this mission and even when the doctor (Josef Vajnar) demands Christoffer view the body for identification, there is no sense of sadness. His father's lawyer (Borivoj Navrátil) make all the arrangements for the shipment of the body back to Denmark and informs Christoffer that the financial balance sheet at the time of death leaves Christoffer with only the house in which his father lived, a place Christoffer plans to sell immediately to end this Prague obligation. But during all the 'business' of dealing with his father's death, Christoffer feels a distance from Maja and confronts her with his knowledge that she is having an affair. The veneer of their marriage cracks open and the couple must face the current status of their relationship, a widening crevice that is in many ways held together only by the frequent video calls with their son in Denmark. Theirs is a history of love examined.

Christoffer's closure with his father includes the discovery that his father had a beautiful singer/housekeeper Alena (Jana Plodková) who lived with the father with her daughter. When they meet they have no common language but Christoffer learns of his father's apparent abiding love for Christoffer. Another surprise hits Christoffer when he discovers the relationship between his father and the lawyer, a relationship that explains why the father left Denmark for Prague and a new life. With all the new information about the father he never knew Christoffer faces decisions about his own marriage and his role as a father to his own son and the last wishes of his father before he died. Though eager to return to Denmark there are 'procedural problems' that prolong the stay in Prague

PRAGUE is a story about love in all its permutations - disappointments, rewards, and longings both filled and unfulfilled. The manner in which each of the characters plays out the consequences of love against the cold background of the rigid atmosphere of the city of Prague is like watching organisms under a microscope. Enhanced by a powerful musical score by Jonas Struch and moody cinematography by Jørgen Johansson it is a powerful film, beautifully acted, and one with much food for thought even after the film is over. Grady Harp

Prag is not only a good feature with a tense atmosphere between two people who are breaking up. It is also a very well shot production (by DoP Jørgen Johansson) who has exploited the Digital Intermediate post production route to the hilt but in a very subtle way. Almost every shot has been treated with advanced secondary color corrections and windows. Red's and blue's are emphasized while most of the images remain slightly desaturated. The shooting format is s35 (3-perf.) flat stretched to 2:35 scope for the cinema release. The television version is 1:78 (16:9) retaining full height aspect ration. Enjoy this production hopefully digitally projected or on HD DVD.