L'étranger frappe à la porte

A good little Danish film set in 1947. Not an exploitation film as some of the promotional material suggests. A man wanders the countryside. He hides when an automobile passes. As night falls he stumbles upon a remote cottage. He knocks on the door and is greeted by a beautiful, reserved woman. She allows him to stay the night. Slowly we learn a few things. The man is wicked. He talks to himself, letting the viewer know what the woman does not. She is holding on to some past tragedy that has hurt her badly.

From the beginning, the viewer senses this will end badly. He is being hunted for some atrocities committed during the war. She is mourning for her husband, who died during the war. Against this backdrop, a romance between the two slowly blooms. The sex is intimate, tender and presented in a mature manner. The scenery is splendid, shot in the Danish countryside.

There is another subplot involving the husband's death that I don't want to reveal to the reader. It is key to the story and will be revealed near the end. As the romance plays out we see two contrasting views on human nature. The woman believes there is good and evil. We choose which side we take. The man believes everyone is evil and as he says in the film, animal kills animal.

WW2 brought out this discussing during and after the war. When we saw first hand the atrocities committed by mankind. Some conveniently tucked away their conscience and exclaimed they were only doing their duty. The woman's husband joined the fight, and died, battling evil in his mind. In many ways this is the story of mankind. Some people believe you always do what is right. That you create a win-win situation in life. Others believe in status and material wealth and there are only winners and losers.

The romance builds and becomes quite touching. But the viewer knows it is doomed as the man has built it on lies. There is another little twist that I alluded to earlier that makes the film complete.

A man on the run for something unstated seeks shelter in a country home of a lonely widow one dark, rainy night. He tells her he wants to use the phone. She has no telephone, but gives him food and lets him sleep on her couch. The next day, the man, figuring this was a secluded place to hide, comes up with an excuse to stay. Over time, the couple's relationship becomes sexual. This produces complications.

Although the man is clearly using the woman, he does seem to have affection for her. The woman, meanwhile, feels like she is cheating on her dead husband.

A Stranger Knocks has a theatrical feel. Except for one brief appearance of a third actor, the film is mostly just the two actors in the one location. Birgitte Federspiel (as Vibeke) and Preben Lerdorff Rye (as Han) are both good actors, but the first half of the film drags. The second half is better.

A Stranger Knocks was controversial for two, at the time, adult sex scenes. Neither is overly explicit by today's standards (there is no nudity), but both are memorable for their focus on Vibeke's emotional state. The second one is important dramatically since the sex scene also contains an important clue.

A Stranger Knocks is a decent arthouse film from the 1950's that has been mostly forgotten today. It has two good actors and two memorably adult sex scenes. On the downside, some of the exposition is clunky and the play-like situation can get a little tiresome. A Stranger Knocks is still worth checking out if one runs across it, but one should not spend a lot of time searching for the film.