Kvinden der drømte om en mand

This movie is a great character study that brings you under the skin of the two protagonists. One might have some criticism for the depth or quality of the dialogue, but dialogue is not what this film is about. It is about the emotions and the dreams, the tustles that the protagonists face within their inner selves and with those around them. These are transposed through the visuals rather than the dialogue. While the pace may be slow for some viewers, the crescendo and the climax are perfectly dosed creating a sublimely atmospheric piece of art-house cinema. I strongly recommend this movie to all lovers of true cinema.

I have to say spoiler because i do reveal some parts of the storyline but nothing of all the twists and plots.

For some reason people get very defensive on movies about infidelity and rate them low. It could have something to do with the fact that this happens more often to people than, say, a zombie apocalypse and therefore it is closer to home and more frightening.

Story: The beautiful successful photographer Karen, magnificent performance of Sonja Richter, living the dream with a loving supporting husband (Michael Nyqvist)and daughter, meets the man of her dreams on a job in Paris. Literally man of her dreams as she dreamed confusing dreams about this man prior to their meeting.

A claustrophobic thriller with a David Lynch-ian twist with the reoccurring dream and a perfect circle of events. If you liked this you will also want to see Damage (Juliette Binoche and Jeremy Irons) and Polanski's Bitter Moon.

K is a danish photographer, she is married and has a daughter. While working in Paris she sees a man and follows him. He catches her and she explains that she has a recurring dream about him where he commits suicide in a hotel. They begin an affair. When she is sent to work in Poland she tracks him down even though this time around she took her family with her on the trip. He's a Polish professor, married and with a daughter. Then he follows her to her hotel. He gives her a key to an apartment right across where he lives. Eventually her husbands catches on to things and they break up. Meanwhile she installs herself in the apartment and spends her time watching him and following him to work. Eventually he gets tired of her and tries to break things up but she won't accept, until he shows her that the uses the apartment for all of his affairs.

This movie is stylish and well directed. The script lacks though. The two lovers don't share anything but sex really, they don't talk much and know little about each other. Now this could very well be how affairs are for Scandinavian women--in the end credits the writer/director thanks all the women who have shared their stories with him--but it doesn't make for a compelling movie. One doesn't even see the need for an affair, at least for her. She seems most happy when she is working. We don't even see her smile during the affair. One thinks that the whole dream issue will somehow contribute to the story, but it doesn't overtly. The most important line is uttered by the Polish man when he tells her that he isn't the man of her dreams. No one is the person of someone else's dreams. In dreams, or rather day-dreams and fantasies, we idealize people and then expect the other person to conform to that ideal--which never happens. I think in a way that's what the movie is trying to tell us with the dream sub-story.

While not perfect, this movie is a must see for cheaters and would-be cheaters. For the rest of us, there isn't much here but a sense of emptiness that isn't even filled by the movie's style.