Assuntos de Família

This film is about 'Family Matters' but nothing is as it seems. The narrative of the film is in many ways quite absurd - and beyond the real. The Danish title translates something like 'What stays in the Family...'- which could make you expect a classic family drama, but this is nothing of the sort, exactly because Bier is fully aware that 'family' is not what it used to be, and love is not about family alone. This is a central and reaccuring theme in Bier's films. Still, we live 'with' the (hopelessly) romantic tales of the ideal family, despite all broken hearts - of the families we live 'in'. And we can try to break out.

To make us feel the real, and seize the day, and understand the potential of following our hearts desires, Bier so often blends absurd narratives and humour into what is otherwise the tristesse of the everyday. Like a combination of Fellini and Kaurismäki. Bordering on the Carnevalesque - but ever so tender at the same time! Still, the style follows or links to a long line of Danish 'folke-komedier'.

Jan is a Swedish-Danish grown-up who, after his mother's death, discovers that he was adopted as a child. When, because of this, all his world begins to crack, he decides to look up his real parents. This hunt leads him to Portugal in a taxi, and there some more surprises await him.. This film, you might say, is typically Danish, since it doesn't hesitate to bring up really difficult, but nevertheless completely possible, circumstances. Everything is hidden behind a facade of humour, but behind it you see the seriousness of unpleasant things that you can't help. I guess what happens in the film is among the worst discoveries a person can make, but still it is not a totally absurd plot, since nothing in it is really impossible. In spite of all family miseries and the desperate tries to keep up the normal looks of it all, I think the most absurd and improbable element actually is the taxi driver, gladly coming along with his passenger all the way from Denmark to Portugal! I like this film very much, since the plot is suggestive and interesting, and the humour is wonderful. Some of Sweden's and Denmark's (and maybe Portugal's - I cannot speak for them) greatest actors help to make the details in the film a persisting enjoyment. I still remember the tiny facial expressions and the strong lines, five years after having seen it, and I especially remember the breathtaking music when Jan gets to know he was adopted. Altogether a great film.