Just Like Home (Hjemve) (2007)

by Lone Scherfig

An Analysis

Erling and His Sister

Just Like Home is that safe place most everyone knew as a child, and to which adults occasionally need to return. Individual crisis drives the ensemble cast of characters in a very small Danish town where everyone "supports each other, and helps each other." Centered around an under-reconstruction town square and a witch hunt for a man rumored to have run about town naked one night, Just Like Home uses these mostly as backdrop to uninteresting romantic pairings. We meet five primary male characters: Lindy Steen, the by-default town artist who garners undeserved respect from the townspeople; Jens Peter (Lars Kaalund), pharmacist; Erling, a man dealing with difficult parent memories as well as a sister who falsely believes she is dying, seeks illicit drug services of Jens Peter to manage his mood; Jesper, the third-generation owner of "Your Dressman" clothing shop; and Bo, the leader of on-strike town square construction workers. We also get to know Margrethe Nielson (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen), a recent escapee from the possessive, virginal religious cult Pure Path; Myrtle (Bodil Jørgensen), a marginalized social worker and pipe-carving hobbyist; Ulla (Mia Lyhne), the business-smart employee of the "Your Dressman" clothing shop; Mette-Inge (Pernille Vallentin), an assistant to Jens Peter; and Erling's unnamed, hospitalized sister (Ida Dwinger). In response to the "beware of the naked man" scare, Jens-Peter and Jesper involve others to promote, staff, and tranform The Silent Ear from a counselling helpline into a streaker sightings hotline. Lone Scherfig's third film since her breakthrough Italian for Beginners (2000) is the weakest of the three, but still worthy of a look.

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O Captain! my Captain!

If the small Danish town setting and the ensemble cast that couples off were not enough to remind us of Italian for Beginners, the repeat casting of Lars Kaalund and Ann Eleonora Jørgensen does. (Each is actually in his/her third Scherfig film--Når mor kommer hjem (1998), their first, unavailable in the U.S.) Unlike Italian for Beginners, Just Like Home does not conform to Dogme 95, lacks compelling drama and twists, and has us mostly disinterested in the interpersonal romantic relationships. It also has no deeper purpose than its emotionless, poster-spoiled, faint shadow of the iconic "I Am Spartacus" / "O Captain! my Captain!" moments of male solidarity. A director should not shy from shooting scenes similar to the iconic cinema, thereby creating wet noodle cinema. She should create, or at minimum to attempt to create, an impressive and new mise-en-scène that imparts audience-wide cinematic amnesia regarding the classic scenes. Above all, make us care about it!

Jesper, Jens Peter, at The Silent Ear

Several story lines go nowhere. While the residents make impressive attempts to build community solidarity via meetings, union strikes, and brainstorming sessions, as the Silent Ear transforms into a streaker sighting hotline, it starts to mirror the nasty call-in show from Bryan Singer's Public Access (1993), where townsfolk tattled on each other. But Silent Ear, lacking a village-wide audience, holds little potential for public strife. 

Bo, Ulla

Let it suffice to say we didn't care about the union strike or the square's reconstruction. We never see the square before reconstruction, so the audience is missing nothing. Meanwhile the construction zone seems to inconvenience neither traffic nor commerce.

While we care marginally that Your Dressman is going bankrupt, the resolution to the problem has no suspense. Once resolved, the shop and its former and latter owners, as owners, are never revisited. 

Margrethe, Erling

The most interesting character development potential was in Margrethe, the refugee from life-long Jesus Camp. Scherfig's treatment of Margrethe's Jesus Police minders was more interesting that her treatment of Margrethe, culminating in Jesus Police Office Vicky, while her male cult cop partner leads her away, cranes her neck back over her shoulder to leer at the scores of naked men as long as possible. It is the film's best laugh. Then again, Just Like Home has more primary characters than laughs.

All of these plot lines ultimately mean nothing, go nowhere, and have no denouement. They are used solely as plot devices to move individual characters toward coupling. How sad that, like in Italian for Beginners, the couplings again make little sense, and sadder still that we care less for Just Like Home's characters than we did for Beginners'. 

Though Just Like Home is the laggard in her offspring of films, it is after all worthy of a look. It is available with subtitles on Netflix streaming.

Since Just Like Home

Scherfig was fortunate to jump from this mediocre film into the brilliantly crafted, Oscar-nominated An Education (2009). Many filmmakers do not get such breaks. Let us hope Scherfig's upcoming One Day (2011) does not falter as Just Like Home did. She has a bit more safety net now, but that's no reason to use it. 

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002)

by Lone Scherfig

An Analysis

Harbour (Adrian Rawling) cares for his younger brother Wilbur (Jamie Sives) who becomes more embarrassed each time a suicide attempt fails. The brothers inherit their father's used book shop in Scotland, and plan to close it, until Alice (Shirley Henderson) arrives to sell some books and, with her daughter Mary (Lisa McKinlay), changes their lives. Lone Scherfig's first film since Italian for Beginners (2000) breaks from her Dogme 95 style and delivers a surprising and satisfying film.

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Scherfig-as-Auteur

Lone Scherfig

While Scherfig leaves behind Dogme 95's principles, she does retain a few elements from it and from Italian for Beginners. We can feel that she has returned her director of photography Jørgen Johansson from Italian for Beginners, as he creates shots unafraid to show us the backs of principal actors. In one of the film's two most pivotal scenes, when incompetent nurse Moira (Julia Davis) spills the beans on Harbour's medical condition, that moment's music/sound effects were provided in-scene by young Mary making her crystal glass sing a soft, discordant shriek. Last, Scherfig uses death as a distraction from the film's story twist. Like in Beginners, when everyone and her mother seemed to be dying, Scherfig uses Wilbur's suicide attempts to distract us from the eventual story--by film's end, none thought Wilbur would check out early.


Characters

Nurse Moira

Kind nurse Moira, who arrives with a different hair style every day (including crimping!), is a bit unbelievable as a proper nurse. Her professional boundaries with her group counseling clients are easily and often crossed, she extols the virtues of "alternative medicine" (lamenting its title for all the wrong reasons), and she willingly gives up confidential client information. Her unveiling of Harbour's condition is one of the film's two biggest plots turns. The rest of her character make-up allows for this misstep to happen, but I wonder what alternatives Ms. Scherfig contemplated in trying to figure out how to unveil Harbour's condition.

Harbour and Alice

Harbour is a kind man who takes Wilbur's woman-wooing advice to land Alice. Harbour, in his kind goodness, could be prematurely dismissed as uninteresting, or unimportant to the film. Harbour's reaction to learning from innocent Mary that Alice is sleeping with Wilbur is the unique, emotional scene of the film. We have all seen the "when I die, take care of my wife" scene before, but Harbour's subsequent kind, low-key, indirect, sincere scenes with Alice and then with Wilbur, allow him to say goodbye, and that he is okay with them being together, all without ever making either feel defensive or anxious.  This is the brilliant scene that makes Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself.

Alice

Alice, incompetent as a janitor, finds success in greater challenges, such as running a bookstore. But for saving Wilbur, she remains emotionally understated. Harbour's attraction to her, other than her pretty-side-of-plain looks, seems to be rooted in having been able to land her. Wilbur's attraction to her is even less apparent.  

Wilbur

Finally, Wilbur. Wilbur does not understand how to be nice, even though he is mostly well-meaning (his mentoring of grade school children, for instance). He lived in the shadow of Harbour for decades, even though dad loved Wilbur more. Wilbur wants to literally kill himself only during the film's first half, which grows into a figurative wanting-to-kill-himself when he imagines that Alice, upon Harbour's imminent Christmas visit, might sleep again with her husband. As Harbour's last conversation with Wilbur unfolds, and the film concludes, we worry not one wit about Wilbur's mental state.  Harbour's death has allowed Wilbur to flourish, though he never wanted it that way.

trailer,Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

Italian for Beginners (2000)

by Lone Scherfig

An Analysis

Italian for Beginners, the earliest U.S.-available feature film from Danish director/writer Lone Scherfig, is an endearing ensemble piece following the lives of six villagers in Denmark, most of whom enroll in an Italian language class. While Scherfig follows the avant-garde Dogme 95 manifesto's ten rules for stripped-down film-making, her audience soon ceases thinking of Italian for Beginners as an experimental film and becomes immersed in the film, caring for its characters.

Interim Danish-Lutheran pastor Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen) has arrived in town to spell Pastor Wredmann (Bent Mejding), a man prone to throwing organists from balconies. Four months removed from his wife's death, soft-spoken Andreas drives an unseen-to-the-audience Mazerati to compensate. Aside from a possible life insurance payout, Andreas' source of wealth, like the car, remains concealed.  

In the town Andreas meets, Helvfin (Lars Kaalund), the hotel's loud-mouthed, misanthropic restaurant manager--a sort of humorless Basil Fawlty; Helvfin's loyal friend Jørgen Mortensen (Peter Gantzler), a woman-shy hotel clerk; Olympia (Anette Støvelbæk), a helplessly clumsy donut shop clerk who lives with and cares for her elderly father Leif; Giulia (Sara Indrio Jensen), an Italian immigrant waitress at Helvfin's hotel restaurant; and a sensuous hairdresser (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen)who cares for her ill mother.

Before pursuing this analysis, we must be familiar with the ten principles of Dogme 95 Manifesto as well as its coda:

1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the image or vice-versa.
3. The camera must be handheld. Any movement or mobility attainable in the hand is permitted.
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable.
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action.
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden.
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35mm.
10. The director must not be credited.

Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste. I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a 'work', as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations.

One's initial reaction might be "what a load of pretentious crap!" Italian for Beginners, the twelfth Dogme 95 film and the first from a woman, is here to surprise the skeptical.

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Jorgen (left) with Andreas 

The film can be divided into two halves. Showing or telling of half a dozen deaths, surprising perhaps for a movement whose superficial action clause disallows most if not all portrayals of murder, the first half is about introducing characters to each other and setting up the unexpected plot twist.  Due to the number of deaths, many viewers will not predict the coming twist, normally so common, predictable, and unsatisfying: that Karen/Carmen (the hairdresser) and Olympia are sisters. Prior to that, we think maybe this film will be about the challenges facing pastor Andreas in counseling the loved ones of the deceased.  

Karen and Helvfin

Giulia

After the plot twist, ~40 minutes of film remains. Unlike the later The Other Man (2008), filming a plot twist was not the sole purpose of Italian for Beginners. The characters grow closer. Relationships are built, wrecked, and reformed. Curiously, the romantic relationships do not make a lick of sense. Helvfin grievously insults Karen's sister and then her mother. Karen ignores the first insult and rewards him with desktop classroom sex. For the second offense he is punished, but not for long, and is soon rewarded with Venetian alley sex. Andreas, a sweet man, slowly pursues the clumsy and well-meaning Olympia, whose penmanship rivals the finest kindergartner. Last, the 40-something, boring, and kind Jorgen, who speaks limited Italian, successfully proposes to the gorgeous, 20-something, Roman Catholic Italian Giulia who understands but speaks limited Danish. Giulia, possibly because of her language barrier, or possibly because the filmmaker saw her as "the immigrant woman" is by far the least developed of the six main characters.  None of these couples ought to be together, particularly Helvfin and Karen, but with death swirling about, they need each other. We as viewers do not much care that the couples don't seem to fit. The sweet emotions that Italian for Beginners elicits overrides most logical objections to the odd couplings.

Karen and Helvfin open a rollaway mattress

Using each setting as-is (as Dogme 95 requires), with its on-site props, lends this film healthy tones of verisimilitude. When Karen is tossed about on the precarious classroom desk, we understand how real that moment feels. When we see an actual, working bakery with all its accouterments, stains, and evidence of use, we notice that realism arrives more effectively only with a documentary film that uses real employees instead of actors. When Karen and Helvfin open a rollaway mattress in said Venetian alleyway, we smile with satisfaction, knowing that bed was found there when cast and crew arrived.

Aside from the Dogme 95 requirements of a 35mm color film handheld camera, the director does have the freedom of lens type (zoom, fixed, wide-angle, fisheye, etc.) In the spirit of Dogme 95, Scherfig eschews anything but a fixed, typical lens or lenses--anything that would add a drop of "artistry." Once arriving in Venice, Scherfig seems to cautiously select properly-lit, cinema-friendly settings, including the lovely restaurant dining room which has a handsome look and remarkably acceptable ambient sound. Scherfig seems to wait for the most attractive levels of sunlight to film certain exterior scenes, especially a pre-dinner twilight scene that glows indigo. 

Scherfig bends the spirit of the rules for setting. She amuses us by using classroom doors that, in the real world, almost certainly lead to closets, but, within the film, serve as classroom entrances.  

Scherfig, comforming to self-imposed Dogme 95 creative limitations, is still an artist--one who has crafted a lovely, touching film.