MIFUNE (Mifunes Sidste Sang)(director/writer: Søren Kragh-Jacobsen; screenwriter: Anders Thomas Jensen; cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle; editor: Valdis Oskarsdottir; cast: Anders W. Berthelsen (Kresten), Iben Hjejle (Liva), Jesper Asholt (Rud), Sofie Grabol (Claire), Emil Tarding (Bjarke), Anders Hove (Gerner), Paprika Steen (Pernille), 1999-Denmark)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
This is an authentic "Dogma 95" film, as before the film opens, that assurance comes with a signed guaranteed shown on the screen that it was made according to the rules stipulated by the Danish directors who founded this school of sparse filmmaking -- Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. The hand-held camera was obvious throughout the film as were the film's lack of special effects, supposedly giving the viewer a chance to discover on their own any beauty worth finding in the film, rather than to be hit over the head with it. Whether adhering to their "Vow of Chastity," of filming only on location and only with natural light, and all the other rules followed, made this a better film, is doubtful. Like all dogmas, they eventually wear out whatever usefulness they might have had in the first place.
Soren Kragh-Jacobsen's "Mifune" is Dogma's third approved project, after Vinterberg's "Celebration" and Von Trier's "Idiots."It is the weakest of the three, but still, it has some punch in a conventional way due to the film's technical clarity. It is a playfully weird telling of a familiar romantic comedy situation, much like a Hollywood formula film. It has a lot of dead spots where it tried comedy and a lot of predictability as far as its romantic situation, but it also had a certain intrinsic beauty about it that kept it afloat and made it seem better than its story was.
It is, nevertheless, a surprisingly conventional work, which makes me wonder about all the fuss this Dogma 95 group go through to give the impression that they are radical filmmakers. A rather trite choice of subject matter for a group that I would have thought to be more politically motivated. What worked well in this film, was that the actors had personality that flashed on the screen, and that there were some breathtaking nature shots of the golden sun going down and of the rich colors of the Danish backwater fields.
The film opens with Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) marrying a rich girl, Claire (Sofie Grabol), whose father owns the firm he works in. When the father toasts the couple and wishes them all the best, and Kresten says this marriage will last forever, based on film history, when the star of the film is sitting on top of the world and it seems nothing can go wrong, his fall is inevitable. This film doesn't go against that observation.
Back in their bedroom, we see the couple f*cking and Claire, by her loud screams as she straddles Kresten, seems to be having one of the greatest f*cks ever. The next morning Kresten receives a call on the cell phone he always carries around with him, from Gerner (Anders Hove), a neighbor of his father's, telling him that his father just died. Claire says he didn't tell her he had a father or a brother, and that he was brought up on a farm as a peasant. He tells her he will be back in Coperhagen in a few days, he'll just bury his father and sell some items in the house, as he takes the family BMW and he goes back by himself to bury his father. Now I would have bet anyone in the theater and have given them 10-1 odds, that was the last of the marriage, that's how obvious this plot was.
Kresten returns to his peasant roots in the deteriorating farm he lived in with his cretin brother, his dispirited father who had given up on life, and the memories of his mother who hung herself when he was a youngster. To remedy this untenable situation, since his brother is not mentally capable of taking care of himself and he doesn't want to place him in a mental asylum, he hires a housekeeper, Liva (Iben Hjejle). The housekeeper is real attractive, but she has a secret, just like Kresten. Her secret is that she is a prostitute, not only is she a prostitute, but she fits the movie cliche of the prostitute with the heart of gold. She tells herself she is only a prostitute to support her boarding school brother Bjarke (Emil Tarding), in the hopes he can have a better life than she has.
She has recently received threatening calls from a psychopath, who says he is going to get her. Unduly frightened, as the psychopath gets her number everytime she changes it, she decides to flee from her residing whorehouse and replies to Kresten's ad for a housekeeper.
At this desolate farm, she is cautiously attracted to Kresten and gently handles the strangeness of Rud (Jesper Asholt) with a simple understanding smile. He is the mentally impaired brother, the source of all the comedy that the film proposes to have, who tells her there are aliens around here. Her smile is the pure one, while Claire also smiles, but her's is a selfish one.
To make a long story short, Claire comes barging in at night to the farm, discovers all the lies Kresten told her about being an orphan, and is horrified at what she sees, and thereby decides he is a peasant psychopath. She takes back the BMW, tells him he no longer works for the firm, and he will receive the divorce papers to sign in the morning.
The screw ups, Kresten and Liva, are a perfect match for each other, but a number of misunderstandings must come before them before they can cement their relationship.
The moral of the story is that you can't run away from who you are and true love wins out over a status-symbol marriage. The film got its title, when Kresten dressed up, ever since their childhood, as the Japanese movie star Toshiro Mifune and playfully teased his brother that the seventh samurai warrior lived hidden in the cellar of the house. This Dogma 95 film left me unmoved, though its story was pleasant and well-crafted. It just felt too much like an art-house film designed to please its audience rather than to be provocative.
REVIEWED ON 5/24/2000 GRADE: C+
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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