Você Desapareceu

Watching and afterwards discussing "You disappear" with a friend, this became a mind blowing experience for me. At first everything seemed like a mess, but then my brain started to make an order out of things. It began to piece everything together into a story. When the film was over I had a really strong idea of what film I've been watching, but when I talked to my friend I realized that he had a completely different experience of what the story was. I think this is one of the points of the film. We are our brains. Our brains perceive the world different. I've never watched a film like this before. What it does to you, does it really well, which makes it a masterpiece for me. For me this film is taking filmmaking into new territory. It's a film about how YOU think.

Trine Dyrholm's husband embezzled 12 million kroners from his school. Nikolas Kaas is the husband who stole the money. But he had a brain tumor. Is he liable? Are we all products of our brain chemistry? Do we have free will or is everything determined by the synapses in our brains? The tumor was removed, but his behavior is still erratic. Bernard, Michael Nyquist, is Frederick's lawyer. His wife was terribly brain damaged in a car accident.

Frederick's Impulse control was lost by the frontal lobe tumor. Frederick's son said in court that the tumor had made his dad more fun, like a friend. The sum stolen was large and it took a complicated set of moves to get it. How could he be impaired? The opening shots of a reckless Frederick driving too fast on a narrow curvy road almost killing people does show impairment. Then an epileptic seizure causes a fall. He was impaired. Dryholm gives a star performance, but is she reliable? There are no clear answers, but that is exactly the point. This film is masterful in the depths it was able to investigate and still be a fascinating viewing.

Try to imagine Ingmar Bergman directing a movie thought out by Alain Resnais! Pretty hard, right? But not after watching this movie. Its digging that deep into the human condition, but also the science behind it. The movie succeeded in making a satisfying whole out of what seems to be opposites: empathy and verfremdung, fiction and facts, science and imagination, real life and theory.

A lot of food for thought here and glowing performances, solid direction and a mind-bending, intelligent screenplay.

Well done!

The story had the potential to make a really good film.

Unfortunately this realisation of it has some serious flaws. One technical is that the monologue/commenting sound track sounds VERY much like someone reading of a paper. I have no idea if the director or the actor is to blame, if you see this in a foreign language with subtitles you MIGHT not be bothered by it.

A few of the attempts done to dramatize the story, unfortunately destroys a crucial plot element. It is only a few scenes (three!), and small alterations from explicit to subtle or omissions of the scenes would have solved it, but as is it completely destroys the main plot IMHO....

Many characters are portrayed fine by the actors, unfortunately this does not include the leading female role...

SOME parts of the film are really good, and others really really bad, so I ended giving it a (sub)mediocre grade...

In Denmark, Frederik Halling (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is driving on a winding road with his wife Mia Halling (Trine Dyrholm) and their teenage son Nicklas (Sofus Rønnov). Out of the blue, Frederik speeds up his car and has a minor accident. When he stops the car on the shoulder, he falls off a cliff and needs to go to the hospital, where the doctor finds a brain tumor. He is submitted to a surgery and has the tumor removed. Frederik is the headmaster of the Saxtorph school where Mia teaches. Soon the owner of the school, Laust Saxtorph (Lars Knutzon), and the board learn that Frederik has embezzled a large amount from the school that will close the school. They go to the court to prosecute Frederik, and Mia hires her friend, Bernard Berman (Michael Nyqvist), to defend her husband. Bernard uses Frederik's change of behavior while having the brain tumor to justify his action while the prosecutor (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) tries to prove that the brain tumor is not the cause of his embezzlement. The life of the Halling family is exposed in the court.

"Du forsvinder", a.k.a, "You Disappear", is an interesting film with a great discussion about human behavior with the question: "Has the lead character's behavior been changed by a brain tumor, or does he still have free will?" However, the screenplay is a messy, with many subplots and flashbacks relative to the relationship of Frederik, Mia, Nicklas, Bernard and his wife Lærke. It seems that Mia was an alcoholic woman that has imagined her affair with Bernard, who is a loyal husband, but this part is confused. The cast is excellent, but Frederik Halling is an obnoxious character and is impossible the viewer feels charisma for him. This is also one of the last films of Michael Nyqvist, who unfortunately died of lung cancer in 2017. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Você Desapareceu" ("You Have Disappeared")