In Akira Kurosawa’s Seven
Samurai, Toshiro Mifune played Kikuchiyo, the son of a peasant farmer who lays
claim to the noble status of a samurai warrior. In Mifune, the new film from Danish
director Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Anders W. Berthelsen plays Kresten, another man who’s
hiding his common past. Kresten has left the farm where he was raised and moved to
Copenhagen, where he has not only achieved success in the business world but has even
married the boss’ daughter. On the morning after his wedding night, Kresten is jolted
to hear that his father has died. It’s painful and awkward for Kresten: not
only has he told his new wife and in-laws that his family is dead, but in reality his sole
surviving relative, his older brother Rud (Jesper Asholt), is severely retarded.
If this sounds like a Danish remake of Rain Man, think again. Mifune replaces the
American film's contrivances and attention-drawing acting styles with warm
characterizations and a sweet sense of the absurd. It’s Rain Man without all
the bull.
Waiting for Kresten at the dilapidated family farm is Rud, a wide-eyed
child-man who carries sparklers to their father's funeral and is obsessed with UFOs. (He
thrusts his hands into the air like antennas whenever the subject comes up). Casting about
for a housekeeper to take care of Rud, Kresten eventually settles on Liva (Iben Hjejle), a
taciturn young woman with a secret life of her own. Liva also has a troublesome sibling,
her brother Bjarke (Emil Tardin), a young hellion whose private schooling Liva pays for by
working as a call girl. Plagued by a menacing anonymous phone caller and an abusive pimp,
Liva welcomes the chance to spend some time in the country, even if it means looking after
the impish Rud and fending off the local rubes. As Kresten and Liva slowly unknot the
cross-purposes that stand between them, and Bjarke enters the disjointed household, a
different kind of family begins to emerge.
As tangled as this may sound, Mifune doesn’t whip its
people along any phony character arcs. Kresten isn’t made to resent Rud at the
beginning just so he can learn to love him by the end; instead, he loves Rud all along. Mifune
moves around, capturing unexpected moods and moments, such as the visit from Rud’s
oddball friends who fill the house with cigar smoke and the sound of flamenco guitars, or
the paint fight between Kresten and Liva that ends on an abruptly sour note. The story
emphasizes the brothers here, the lovers there, and even takes time to scrutinize
what’s going on between Rud and the near-delinquent Bjarke. Mifune’s
characters all must share the same farm.
Berthelsen is a pleasant performer, but he lacks weight and
resonance as Kresten. (His impersonation of Mifune is nondescript when it could have been
memorably exact.) Asholt is pitch-perfect, though. He’s so immersed in Rud that
he’s like a figure from a documentary, and he’s not afraid to show how the Ruds
of this world can sometimes be a simple pain in the neck. Iben Hjejle’s performance
as the stoic, private Liva alone makes Mifune worth seeing. Her toughness seems
like a projection of real armor; she makes Liva cagey and tired in specific, familiar
ways. (Hjejle also appears in Stephen Frears’ upcoming High Fidelity.) Mifune is the third film issued under the aegis of Dogma 95, the
group of Danish directors whose "Vow of Chastity" stands in reaction to
Hollywood artificiality. As other Dogma directors have done for their films,
Kragh-Jacobsen has issued a tongue-in-cheek "Confession" listing Mifune’s
"moral transgressions" of the Vow, including the endearing admission that he
helped "chase the neighbor’s free range hens across our location." Such
gentle chaos is in the spirit of Mifune.
- Tom Block
Internet Movie Database
official
site
....
