Der er en yndig mand

I was glad to have a chance to see what turned out to be the Oscar-winner for short subject. Here in the U.S. we may forget that other countries also experience immigration in ways unique to each receiving country. The confusion over the names was funny and believable, and the bureaucratic maze in which the protagonist found himself is apparently universal! The teacher's empathy for her language students was explained, in a non-dogmatic way, by her own background as a "peasant" and the discrimination she suffered. I cheered when it won the Oscar--unfortunately, none of my friends had seen it and probably never will, because of the limited availability of these short films!

The Oscar win by Martin Strange-Hansen's "Der er en yndig mand" ("This Charming Man" in English) went over my head at the time; after all, how many of the nominated short films are readily available to see? I finally found a copy of it in a local video store. To me, the short poses the question of immigrants' status in a country. The protagonist has had trouble finding a job, despite being a native-born person in an egalitarian society, so he poses as an immigrant in the hope of starting up a relationship with a woman whom he's fond of. I'm left wondering how successful he would've been had he gone the other way around.

Either way, it's an enjoyable short.

I was kind of let down by this short, since it won the Oscars and all. I xpected more. But it's actually an okay short, technically well done and sometimes rather amusing. But the story is too slight, and the humour, while being nicely subdued and gentle throughout, is not consistently funny enough throughout. But it's biggest problem is it's subject matter (which ironically is the REASON it won the Oscar) Film is PC moralizing in a manner that has been done to death here in Denmark. "respect your fellow man, even though he is an immigrant", "don't be a racist pig" etc., etc. This is all very fine, but I and pretty much anyone I know, don't need to be taught that. And I doubt a single racist bigot would change his mind after seeing this movie. It doesn't exactly give any real new insight into anything really.

But all in all, it is a well-crafted, rather amusing short, but don't expect Oscar material. But then again, "A Beautiful Mind" won the gong even though it was the least deserving in the pack.

Well, I thought the lead actor was just fine. He was supposed to be slightly nebbishy anyway. The movie I thought was a little corny, but the message was very sweet. I'm surprised it got the Oscar--it wasn't exactly deep. But it was feel-goody, so okay. I especially liked the part where the 2 guys get their beers and make a little happy sound. I guess that's universal.

This is movie gives a very precise picture of the danish culture. The main character is El Hassan/ Lars Hansen. There is a mixup on the jobagency so they mistaken him for a foreigner. Then he meets a girls who he falls in love in and she teach danish to foreigners. It is then he takes his new character of El Hassan. All these comes out to an outstanding and funny movie.