|
 
Tryst with a twist
"Reconstruction" is a dizzying Danish puzzle about a man who, after a romantic encounter, is bounced into a parallel reality in which his existence seems to have been erased.
By PETER THEIS
Offoffoff.com
Tottering between pretension and daring, artifice and artistic
license, the Danish director Christoffer Boe ultimately (though perhaps
overconfidently) steers "Reconstruction," which won the Camera d'Or at
Cannes (best debut film), into the camp of the good, the watchable, the
intriguing.
|
| RECONSTRUCTION | Directed by: Christoffer Boe.
Written by: Christoffer Boe, Mogens Rukov.
Cast: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Maria Bonnevie, Krister Henriksson, Nicolas Bro, Helle Fagralid, Peter Steen, Malene Schwartz, Ida Dwinger.
Cinematography: Manuel Alberto Claro.
Edited by: Peter Brandt, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen.
|
| |
The opening sequences grate, though. They feature dense, aphoristic
narration and camera trickery meant to establish the artificiality of the
enterprise of watching film, of spectating art, and, in particular, of taking
in the story that will follow. Through visual analogy, filmmaking is
equated with sleight of hand, not magic. However, this particular hand is
heavy rather than slight. The in-your-face theoretics and self-awareness
are presented forcefully, delivered by an iron fist in a glove of Danish
velvet. Luckily, almost like a trumpeting book-jacket copy written by some
publishing-house hack, the jarring obviousness appears only at the beginning
and end. In between, the theme of artificiality is treated with far more
subtlety and power.
|
Amidst some temporal shuffling of scenes, the film introduces Alex
(Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a ragamuffin photographer in a relationship with a
beautiful girl, Simone (Maria Bonnevie), who has more feelings for him than
he for her. Introduced in parallel are Aimee (also played by
Bonnevie ... level-one artificiality achieved, Houston) and her older,
work-preoccupied husband August (Krister Henriksson). August also happens
to be a writer, and, in a way, serves as the anchor for the self-reflexive
acrobatics (or airs, depending on your tolerance for postmodernish themes)
that the film puts on. The ripe-for-a-tryst Alex crosses paths with the
ripe-for-a-liaison Aimee, and they do as the birds and bees do. And then
comes the part that will infuriate or fascinate, a textbook deus ex machina.
Alex enters a parallel universe where he does not exist. He returns
to his apartment and finds that it does not exist; his landlady does not
recognize him. Nor do Simone or his friends. A puzzle is introduced. Is
Alex mad, or are his friends perpetrating a resentful ruse, to punish him
for abandoning Simone? Or has reality truly altered in some inexplicable
fashion, a curse to smite Alex? While the viewer works this out, Kaas shows
skills: Alex's response is riveting and true, his distress as genuine as
the premise is artificial. This proves to be the meta-message of the film:
the human is sometimes best distilled in patently constructed situations,
artificially "reconstructed" as it were, rather than observed in a prism of
perfect realism. In the end, Alex may be no more than a figment of the
writer August's tormented imagination, just as Aimee appears to be only a
figment of Alex's.
|
Dizzy? I was. This is, for better or worse, the esoteric plane
where this film plays out its drama. Boe, like fellow countryman Lars von Trier,
seems to enjoy working an awareness of film's fakeness into the texture of
the movie itself, sharing it with the audience, incorporating it into the
viewing experience. What makes it work here, though, are two things: the
performance of Kaas, and the care in the film's details. For example, the
three postcards that Alex uses in his seduction of Aimee, representing
different choices of action, show up again on a subway platform, at another
crucial existential juncture. The film is riddled with such
precision-crafted throwaways, which make its high ambitions feel somewhat
earned, as well as fortify the film's pro-dream, anti-realism bent. Kaas,
meanwhile, generates striking pathos, and having his sincere performance
embedded in this meticulously-built but barely real atmosphere creates a
sustained frisson which pulls the film through its overthinking.
The earnest high art aims of "Reconstruction" could have easily
made the film more provoking than provocative, but its fine execution and
fine lead help the film transcend mere coffeehouse fare.
|
SEPTEMBER 10, 2004
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
Reader comments on Reconstruction:
Post a comment on "Reconstruction"
|
|
|
