KIRA'S REASON: A LOVE STORY
Directed by: Ole Christian Madsen.
Produced by: Bo Ehrhardt & Morten Kaufmann.
Written by: Ole Christian Madsen & Morgens Rukov.
Director of Photography: Jørgen Johansson.
Edited by: Søren B. Ebbe.
Music by: César Berti & Øyvind Ougaard.
Released by: First Run Features.
Country of Origin: Denmark. 93 min. Not Rated.
With: Stine Stengade & Lars Mikkelsen.
DVD Features: English Subtitles. Director Biography. Photo Gallery. Trailers.

One difference between schmaltzy Hollywood fare, with its montages to songs like "So Happy Together" (spoofed so well in Adaptation) and a Dogme 95 film is that when a woman breaks out dancing alone to music in her living room, she's not just happy but disturbed. Made under guidelines of the Danish film collective (the strict use of natural light and sound, hand-held camera, and non-genre storytelling, etc.), this domestic drama (so much for the genre ban) begins when Kira (Stine Stengade, a brunette Helena Christiansen) returns home from a psychiatric clinic to her two young sons and husband Mad (Lars Mikkelsen). It soon becomes apparent that she hasn't recovered. Mad finds her huddled to the ground crying after she has fled a party in her honor. Like the heroine of Breaking the Waves, Kira's an outsider, a child trapped in an adult body, not knowing restraint. And as in The Idiots, the public swimming pool is the site of inappropriate behavior. Kira's over-enthusiastic splashing scares away other children. She refuses to leave, struggling with and hitting a lifeguard. As her actions become more impulsive and her marriage unravels, the film is engagingly unpredictable. That is until the last 15 minutes with its pat explanation revealing her breakdown's source and the unconvincing happy ending. With the camera literally in the actors' faces, Mikkelsen's understated performance is a welcome counterbalance to Stengade's fireworks. Only occasionally, such as in the dance solo, is her acting self-conscious. Refreshingly, the editing is much smoother, even more conventional, than other Dogme films. Though not as engaging as Italian for Beginners or as riveting as The Celebration, Kira's strength is its uncompromising portrayal of the frustrations of a relationship affected by mental illness. KT
October 25, 2003