A gripping dark drama, artistically shot and lined with black humour.
Christoffer (Mads Mikkelsen) travels to Prague with his wife Maja (Stine Stengade) to organise the shipment of his dead father back to Denmark. He is unemotional about the whole thing and only expects to fulfil the practicalities. It is 25 years since his father ran away from Denmark leaving him and his mother behind.
At the hospital, Christoffer is unable to wave a fly off of his dead father’s face. He just stands and stares – that is the extent of his stunted feeling. The doctor drolly tells him ‘Life is hard. And you cannot have it all.’ A mantra repeated by the completely bald elderly lawyer played by Czech actor Bořivoj Navrátil.
Whilst the coffin with his father is mistakenly sent to Singapore, events in Prague rapidly develop. Christoffer and Maja’s marriage begins to fall apart. Maja has been seeing a man altogether more lively and tender than the detatched Christoffer. Meanwhile, a surprising fact of his father’s history emerges.
Mikkelsen plays Christoffer very well – lonely, sad, even nihilistic, his placid pale face rarely changes expression. But Stengade really wins your heart as the long-suffering wife who can’t stand her moody self-absorbed husband any longer.
Danish cinema does dark abstract movies well and black humour is its forte. In any Danish film I always find myself looking out for features of the influential Dogme 95 school of cinema. ‘Prague’ does not disappoint. It has all this and more. Stark realism is its most powerful attribute.
As all the Danish movies, this one is really strange. My dissapointment was that the movie is only couple of years old but presents Prague as still being somewhere in early 90ies (may be intended though). Nevertheless, brilliant acting.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the film could almost be set in any dark urban environment. But you're right - it did use old Eastern Bloc stereotypes too much.
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