FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
Directed by: Susanne Bier. Produced by: Sisse Graum Jørgensen & Peter Aalbæk Jensen. Written by: Susanne Bier & Anders Thomas Jensen. Director of Photography: Morten Søborg. Edited by: Pernille Bech Christensen. Music by: Johan Söderqvist. Released by: IFC. Language: Danish with English subtitles. Country of Origin: Denmark. 113 min. Rated: R. With: Connie Nielsen, Ulrich Thomsen & Nikolaj Lie Kaas.
Michael (Ulrich Thomsen), a Danish commanding officer, informs his troops they'll be leaving
Danish soil at midnight for a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. He
reassures the startled men, who receive the news while showering, they won't
encounter anything they haven't trained for. Next, he picks up his younger
brother Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), newly released from prison after serving time for assault
and robbery. Dinner that night is both an awkward and tense family reunion,
with Jannik aloof and simmering with anger, and a farewell dinner for
Michael. Privately, he says goodbye to his family and asks his brother to
look after his wife Sarah (a radiant Connie Nielsen) and his two young daughters. Director
Susanne Bier
effectively sets up the impending contrast between gray Denmark and
mountainous Central Asia by intercutting Sarah's insular middle-class
routine with Michael's journey into the unknown. While aware that Michael's
life could be endangered, Sarah doesn't sense anything has gone wrong until
she receives the news that Michael's helicopter has been shot down soon
after his arrival.
Just when Brothers seems to follow the predictable pattern of secrets
and betrayal, Bier both holds back and veers in a different direction. In
the first half of the film, the characters appear to be rigidly set, until
Bier throws in a twist, which dramatically changes the film’s somber tone. As a result, this
intimate drama builds towards a suspenseful climax. Brothers has
a momentum and emotional impact that Bier’s previous film, Open Hearts,
lacked. The acting and well-written script convey a strong sense of
realism, and in Sarah and Michael's two daughters, Bier successfully captures the
precocious playfulness and mean-spirited self-centeredness of childhood.
This is perhaps the most moving and eloquent film of life on the home front
since Coming Home. Kent Turner
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