A fat naked man is running across the screen smeared in blood. Five minutes later Danish audience members are asking silly questions apropos of nothing, created and asked only to show the director and cast that there are Danes in the house. Yes, it's the LFF and The London Film Festival is being treated to Danish director Christoffer Boe's new film, Offscreen. Boe's main protagonist Nicolas Bro is played by the actor Nicolas Bro who is a well-known face in Danish theatre, film, advertising campagns and gossip columns. Even though the film initially questions what is real by having the actor Bro filming the actor Bro playing the private Bro, it is ultimately engaged with love and obsession. If Bro and Boe were only playing hand-held tricks on the audience the film would quickly have run thin, but there is a heart at the base of the film, a great mourning of a loss of something that has to end. In this case it is the fictional Bro's fictional marriage to his fictional wife, Lene. The breakdown of the relationship may have been the catalyst for the breakdown of the protagonist, as there is a sense that both relationship and Bro's mind have started to crumble before the start of the film.

At the Q&A session after the film, as well as Danes vying for Boe and Bro's attention, a woman in the audience is confrontational and offended in any which way but particularly because of the alleged misogyny in the film. The director tries to explain that on the contrary - it's about love of and failure to understand women. The actor tries in the same vein but gives up. Another woman follows up on the misogyny theme. Everyone suddenly look tired.

I wonder if the film is as much, if not more, about Christoffer Boe and not Nicolas Bro? Even though Boe pretty much gave Bro free reign, he has 'inserted' himself into many scenes - he is the helpful experienced director teaching Bro how to film and edit, he is the distanced hard working man who firmly brushes Bro off when Bro asks him to stay for a talk, his previous film Allegro is being used as set for a major fall-out between Bro and Boe and in key scenes Bro is wearing a sweater onto which is printed 'Fuck Boe'. Is the film an answer to all the metaphorically fat, naked men who run across screens dripping with metaphorical blood in the Danish film world? Or is it a deeper investigation into Boe's psyche, a chasing of demons, a ridiculing of the self-obsessed self?

This film sank without a trace, apparently, in Denmark. I am not surprised. It is very difficult to be allowed to do something that is different, perhaps harder work for the audience than the usual variety style sing-along shit that is often being hailed as fan-frigging'-tastic. Boe is one of the few directors in Denmark who seem to want to move forward and who dares experiment with film making. He is also one of the few who does not seem as if he spends his budget making films solely for him and his actor friends to sit around and find hilarious on a Saturday night. He is a natural progression of Dogme 95 and thus no better or no worse but simply a next step. The film has since been awarded the Altre Visioni prize in Venice and the general reception in London was good. Does that say anything about the film or does it say more about a Danish audience?

Although not perfect you might want to watch this and view it as an interesting experiment rather than a fully rounded film. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

NB! Nicole Kidman's nose, Charlize Theron's weight gain, Natalie Portman's shaven head...these ladies have nothing on Nicholas Bro - female actors are always applauded for going ugly, but I think this year's award goes to Bro who acts without any vanity whatsoever.
posted by charlotte at 10:25 - comment