La comune

The emotional upheaval of a tightly-knit community has become Thomas Vinterberg's trademark as a film maker. He explored this theme with great success in 'Festen' and in 'Jagten', and now he does it in 'Kollektivet'. This time, the community is a group of people living together in a large house, a way of living that was trendy in the sixties and seventies. The group consists of friends and acquaintances of architect Erik and journalist Anna. Together, they fill up the huge villa he inherited from his parents. Anna thinks this social experiment can add some spice into her life. After all, she has been married to the same man and doing the same job for fifteen years.

But the cozy atmosphere of having meals and drinking beer together with a group of friends, turns sour when Erik introduces someone new into the group: his girlfriend, a young and pretty student. His wife Anna agrees with this arrangement, and in fact proposes it, hoping to keep Erik close to her. But predictably, the whole experiment ends in tears, fights and bitter reproaches.

Vinterberg's film has a different tone of voice than 'Festen' and 'Jagten'. It is a bit more lighthearted, and less harsh. He not only analyzes the emotional feelings of the characters, but also shows how society has changed in the last forty years. What struck me, was how easily Erik gets away with abject male-centred behaviour. He cheats on his wife practically in front of her eyes, and seems to have hardly any emotional connection to her or their daughter. In the end, it is his girlfriend who has to point out to him that his wife is having an emotional breakdown. But even then, he doesn't see the damage he has created. Instead, he complains that all these 'women issues' distract him from his work. Nowadays, a man would get a slap in the face after saying something like that.

The seventies-atmosphere adds an extra dimension to the film, and the period setting makes it an easier viewing experience than 'Jagten' or 'Festen'. At the same time, it is also less intense. It's nice to watch, but doesn't make you shift uneasily in your chair.

"The Commune" at the center of Thomas Vinterberg's film isn't typical of the communes I knew back in the day. For a start, the members of this one are reasonably well off and are mostly middle-aged and, of course, they bring to this 'living together' thing all the baggage you would expect. Things come to a head when commune founder Erik, (Ulrich Thomsen), falls for one of his students and moves her in leading his wife Anna, (Trine Dyrholm), to have a nervous breakdown.

Vinterberg's film began life as a play and it's certainly very theatrical but despite the emotional conflicts at the film's heart, it's also fairly conventional with everyone other than Erik and Anna fading very much into the background. You never get to know any of them. Subplots come and go and it just trudges on. On the plus side, it's very well acted particularly by Dyrholm who won the Best Actress prize at Berlin; she's the only one you actually care about. It might have worked better on stage where at least you could feel 'in the same place' as these commune-dwellers. On screen, it just feels like another piece of Vinterberg navel-gazing.

Thomas Vinterberg performs an experiment / study of the human personality by gathering a gallery of characters (with whom it is difficult to identify yourself personally) and placing them in an extreme situation of coexistence. The supposed pragmatism or cold- blooded of Nordic people to face problems, here blows up. The ability of the director makes the viewer to take part inadvertently in the plot of the film as one more character of his work. Anna, TV presenter. and Erik professor of architecture form together with his teenage daughter an apparently happy family with no more complications than "the problem" of managing the use of a big inherited house. So great the house that they decide to share the use. The new experience begins with great joy but ends up in a dramatic way by crushing the promoter of the idea of sharing the house. It is interesting to observe the behavior of the teenage daughter through the story and also trying to understand how difficult it can be for a teacher accustomed himself to dominate students and situations from a position of strength to have to give up the domain of his house and almost his way of life for the general interest of a group composed by people whose specific weight is equal to nothing; the parasite that barely contribute, the "bums" that do not compromise themselves in anything, a liberal couple contributing to the experiment with a sick child who possibly might have been better brought up in the privacy of a normal home, etc. In summary, this film is full of teachings and is a great exercise in the expression of different behaviors, through the coexistence of a group of people with whom (out of the movie) it would be difficult to establish a friendship and still less to share your life. Finally highlight the great interpretation of the wife versus the weak of Erik's lover. talking of actresses terms, of course. The plot is set in 1970 but this fact is totally irrelevant.

Less difficult to watch then The Hunt or Festen, Thomas Vinterberg's Kollektivet (The Commune) impresses with great cinematography and how successfully it seems to reconstruct the details of the sixties and seventies fashion in Copenhagen, Denmark. But at the same time, it fails to deliver a truly engaging story. It's an interesting story, it's an exotic story, but the situations presented are so unfamiliar for someone who hasn't even considered living in a commune that it simply makes the plot hard to relate to. The Danish director apparently grew in a commune, but that doesn't mean that the story is autobiographical. However, it is pretty obvious that such a subject couldn't be presented so convincingly by someone without the experience of living in a commune. European movies are more and more something of an alternative cinema treat and this movie is a quite a delight from that perspective. The alternative lifestyle of the protagonists is presented in such detail that it doesn't seem forced or artificial. Most of the characters have strong personalities, but these are kind of ignored, as the pace is too quick to stop for them. Ultimately, what truly sticks out in your memory hours even after watching the movie is a very sad love story. A story about allowing extreme changes to your lifestyle and then having to bear all the consequences, with all the associated happiness and tears. "Maybe this is what people use to do in the Northern parts of Europe, I don't know what to say" was the first reaction of someone in the audience that I overheard at the European Film Festival, after the Bucharest opening screening. I kind of agreed. It is quite difficult to relate to a movie about an extreme leftist commune from Denmark. However, if you like strange stories that show with great talent a historical time and place, then The Commune is something you might fully appreciate. Yes, the action could also take place in a more modern setting, as the world is full of communes. However, what really makes this movie watchable is the love invested in recreating the look & feel of a defunct 20th century decade as seen and felt in a Northern Europe capital by a truly talented and hard- working director.

This is quite a slow burner, plot pace wise. Its mostly about family dynamics and trust. It took a while for me to feel especially interested in the characters but I thought it was somewhat of a powerful watch by the time it headed towards the end and I would say it may make you think.

If your not keen on character focussed dramas then this won't be for you. Also of course you likely have to rely on the subtitles, as its in Danish, although I was pleased to see that the subtitles were quite large in terms of text size, compared to other films with smaller subtitles, so if anything it was slightly less of an issue than it might have been. I felt sorry for the wife Anna and I did find myself wondering what might happen next, as things moved on plot wise but it is, as I say, a relatively slow burner, so don't expect fast paced action or anything of that sort. Its a reasonably intriguing watch and overall I suppose I'd say its a good watch, hence my rating.