Mad for Mads

I'm not generally a fan of actors who portray ambiguous characters and don't speak much English, but Mads Mikkelsen is an exception. I loved him in After the Wedding, where he was so quiet on the outside, but just an explosion of emotion on the inside. A few weekends ago, I saw Open Hearts and The Green Butchers, both solid Danish imports as usual.

Open Hearts was extremely difficult for me to sit through. In true Dogme style (directed by Susanne Bier), there were no frills or softness. The story is abjectly sad and somewhat similar in storyline to Lars Von Trier's Breaking the Waves (I couldn't finish that movie either). A young man gets run over by a repentant mother and becomes paralyzed from the neck down. His fiance is devasted and starts screwing the guilty woman's husband...etc. Even though the movie could possibly have been even bleaker, the subject matter was just too weighty. Seeing Mads cry didn't help either.

As a frequent American moviegoer, I depend quite a bit on special effects and the soundtrack. Nonetheless, I also enjoy 'realistic' movies such as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Open Hearts was just too bleak and the characters too flawed and realistic. Even though all of the characters are essentially good people who sometimes make bad decisions, there's a sheen of rawness and ugliness over some of the scenes. I was really frustrated by Mads's character as well, who's somewhat of a middle-aged pathetic pansy. However, His wife is wonderful and the real hero of the movie in my eyes, who tries to hold her family together even while she's falling apart. The other woman is annoying as well. On one hand, she deserves some sympathy after her boyfriend falls apart, but then she goes and messes up the doctor and his family's lives. I guess I despise characters who have their cake and eat it too.

The Green Butchers is a dark comedy and completely different. I enjoyed this movie as well. Without the pyrotechnics and profuse sentiment that virtually lurks in every American film, the story was simple and flowed nicely. Although Mads's character is arguably worse in this movie, he was so over the top that it was funny. He plays a psychopath butcher who dreams of opening his own shop and eventually does. This butcher has overflowing reservoirs of self-pity, a receding hairline that redefines receding, and a propensity to sweat more than any other animal alive. His partner in crime is a young man who's perpetually stoned and makes a habit of killing small animals and preserving their bones dinosaur style. For anyone who's curious, the stoner's the sane one. One never really sympathizes with Mads, but he's absolutely hilarious, melting in puddles of his own sweat.

This movie is charmingly simple and accepting of its good but not excellent status. Maybe I've just watched a spate of horrible American movies lately (Max Payne and Bangkok Dangerous), but it just seems that European movies flow much better. So many action movies, comedies, and even dramas feel choppy nowadays with crater-sized holes in plot development and nonexistent scripts rife with stupidity. While the camerawork is undeniably better (for $100M more), so many fundamentals are missing. I enjoy watching European movies because they are more character driven, quirky, and possess a solid storyline and above average dialogue. This is not to say that I hate American movies since most of my all time favorites are Hollywood produced. Granted, having a meaningful conversation onscreen might be more difficult than creating a 50 car pile-up at the entrance of a nuclear reactor with F-15s flying overhead, but please make an effort. It'll cost less, too.