Life in a dull Danish provincial town is only partly enlivened by an Italian night class.
This is one of these newfangled movies ("Dogma" for those in the know) where the whole thing is captured on video camera, lighting is natural-and-available and all music has to come from a visible source on screen.
Here we have camera work so wobbly that it looks like the cameraman has been taken by surprise by some of the action - either that for the director (Lone Sherfig) doesn't know the Danish phrases for "cut" or "let's go again - the cameraman wasn't ready!"
We are in a Mike Leigh world of small people with flaws trying to make a life in difficult circumstances. There seems a lot of deaths, but in this grey world you can almost call them mercy killings!
Finn is the marginal lead character (just ahead of the young new pastor) as he is both the coffee shop manager - for a while at least - and the stand-in Italian teacher after the original teacher has a heart attack in class. Given that he is fluent in Italian already you wonder why he needs to attend in the first place, but maybe it is the social scene that interest him?
While you may knock the grade Z production values it tells a lot of truths. The main one is that life is nothing but a string of embarrassing moments played off against small moments of pleasure or diversion.
This is one of these newfangled movies ("Dogma" for those in the know) where the whole thing is captured on video camera, lighting is natural-and-available and all music has to come from a visible source on screen.
Here we have camera work so wobbly that it looks like the cameraman has been taken by surprise by some of the action - either that for the director (Lone Sherfig) doesn't know the Danish phrases for "cut" or "let's go again - the cameraman wasn't ready!"
We are in a Mike Leigh world of small people with flaws trying to make a life in difficult circumstances. There seems a lot of deaths, but in this grey world you can almost call them mercy killings!
Finn is the marginal lead character (just ahead of the young new pastor) as he is both the coffee shop manager - for a while at least - and the stand-in Italian teacher after the original teacher has a heart attack in class. Given that he is fluent in Italian already you wonder why he needs to attend in the first place, but maybe it is the social scene that interest him?
While you may knock the grade Z production values it tells a lot of truths. The main one is that life is nothing but a string of embarrassing moments played off against small moments of pleasure or diversion.