Hvordan vi Slipper af Med de Andre

Denmark • 2007 • 94m •

• Directed by: Anders Rønnow Klarlund. • Starring: Søren Pilmark, Louise Mieritz, Søren Fauli, Lene Tiemroth, Lene Poulsen, Poul Glargaard, Marie Caroline Schjeldal, Rasmus Botoft, Tommy Kenter, Jesper Langberg, Kirsten Peüliche, Niels Weyde, Kim Sønderholm. • Music by: Sanne Graulund.

Left at a loss as to what measures must be taken in order to save their crumbling society, the Danish government enacts martial law and begins systematically executing tax evaders, welfare abusers, and various other inexpedient citizens.

Review:

Image from: Hvordan vi Slipper af Med de Andre (2007)

I had high expectations of this movie (the title, translated, is "How We Get Rid of the Others"). After all, the concept is great: a near future in which the ruling elite has taken the consequence of the right-wing government's constant verbal and legislative persecution of so-called freeloaders and the left wing in general, and decided to just kill off everyone who cannot prove that they're contributing something to the establishment (the establishment being called "the common good", but actually meaning the interests of the ruling capitalist ideology).

Very cool idea! Ideal for biting satire! Only, this movie completely blows its chance. The satire comes out only in a few scenes and performances of absurdity, but this satire is not sustained; it is neither sharp nor witty. And for an alleged comedy, the movie has nearly no funny scenes. The comedy, I assume, is supposed to be in the absurdity of the situations, but the situations are largely uncomfortable and over-serious, rather than evoking either laughter or thought.

The script is rife with grave errors in disposition. The action should have focused on the political aspects and how wrong it would be to do such a thing, but instead oodles of time are spent on a young woman who was the one that wrote the new laws for fun, and who's trying to save everybody, by organizing a resistance that ships people to Africa. All this is beside the point! A movie like this should not pretend to be so serious! It's a satire! A political statement. But it doesn't even begin to actually address the problem it's supposed to be about. Maybe it was afraid of going too far? How cowardly. That's not art. It's not even real satire.

Søren Pilmark, a very serious and by now one of Denmark's absolutely senior actors, was very good. He largely carried what little entertainment value the movie had. Everybody else: nothing special (well, perhaps except for Lene Poulsen, who did supply a convincing performance).

In fact, a problem with most Danish movies is that the language never sounds natural. Neither the formulation nor the delivery. Why is it so difficult to make it sound right? Why must it be so stilted and artificial? I hope, when people look at these movies fifty years from now, they don't think that this was how people talked in general Danish society.

Review by sarastro7 from the Internet Movie Database.

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