The bench

Brilliant movie. Jesper Christensen puts his soul into this part as Kaj, who drinks so much, he's dying. Suddenly his daughter appears, who he has not seen since she was about 4 years, so she can't recognize him. She has a son now, and a violent husband. Kaj just hangs out with the locals on a bench, drinking beers and stronger stuff. He's sunken so low, he's negative towards everything and everybody. But now, where he has a grandson, he wants to pull himself up - to live again. But is it too late? It's so great to watch the similar reality these actors/actresses has put in their roles. Jesper Christensen really deserves some important awards for this part. I also enjoyed Halfdan E.'s score very much.

Here's a comment to this Norwegian Øysten guy! To me it sounds more like you have a problem with Danes in general and are just using the movie as an excuse to utter some very stupid remarks about Danish movies. You sound like a poor fellow with a self esteem problem. It's not our problem that Norway is not exactly the capital of film making right now. During the last 10 years or so Danish films have had an impressively high level of quality. Sure, there have been some not very good and some very bad movies, but the general level is high. If you take a look at the over-exposed American movies it's only a low fraction of those that are even worth mentioning and yet they are still dominating the cinemas everywhere, also in Denmark. Of course, the success of Danish films has made the fraction of American movies decrease a bit which is a very positive thing. In the 80's we excelled in extremely bad comedies so the last 10 years have been a giant leap forward. You can say what you want about the Dogma95 concept but it resulted in a series of good movies and a lot of fruitful discussions about film making in general. Now, Dogma95 has seized to exist (it was only intended to be officially "running" for 10 years) which is probably also a good thing because otherwise the concept could end up as a parody of itself. Dogma95 caused a little stir in the movie industry and rightfully deserves a note in movie history. It's like Lars Von Trier himself: You can love or hate him, but you cannot possibly ignore him.

We've all of us seen them: the alcoholics wasting their lives sitting on our cities' benches. What we don't see is the drama behind the alcohol.

What struck me while watching Baenken is that it is all so believable and therefore the more painful to watch. The story of this film becomes less important than the leading character's death wish. His cynical attitude towards life and suicidal drinking habits are what sticks in one's mind.

Jesper Christensen is masterful in portraying the misery, the shame and hopelessness that go with alcoholism. The drinking bout in which he cries while lying wounded in his apartment is gut wrenching to watch.

Not an easy film to watch but definitely worthwhile if one has the stomach for it.

The most stunishing thing about this movie is the acting of the drunk guy. Several times during the movie I pondered whether they had brought in a real drunk, or if it really was an actor? All his moves, the way i talked etc. were so real.

The story as far as I recall it, is about a drunk guy on dole, with no future. Suddenly he meets a person which makes his internal flame of live rise and burst.

We as spectators get a view of how it is having no future, no family and nothing to do. Its a story without any special effects or explosions (not even a telly which is thrown out of the window from the second floor explode upon impact with the sidewalk!) But still, the story is so much better than of most multi-billion dollar movies from Hollywood.

I was very skeptical when I first went to see this movie, I have never been a fan of political movies or movies with an overstated "message". This film however, proved to be neither. This is a refreshingly unsentimental portrayal of one of the members of society that we all would prefer to ignore. The main character, Kaj, is a wellfare client with no prospects, he once had a job and was making a life for himself, but now he is a broken down alcoholic with a genuine but thinly-veiled deathwish. He is masterfully portrayed by Jesper Christensen who, deservedly, won both the Bodil and Robert awards for his performance. Enter a woman who says she is his daughter and suddenly his world becomes complicated. What is so great about this film is that it never wallows in pity and heartfelt sympathies for its protagonists and neither does it become a political manifesto about the sufferings of the lower classes. This is ultimately a movie about a man, a man who may have made some wrong decisions in his life but nonetheless a human being like the rest of us. Per Fly spent a lot of time with people whose life resembles that of the characters in order to achieve a high level of authenticity. As a result the setting of the film is thoroughly believable and the characters equally so. This is the first film in Per Fly's trilogy about the classes in Denmark, the second movie about the upper class premiers this week in Denmark and the third, about the middle class will begin preproduction shortly.