With its setting split between lush Danish suburbia and the bleakly exotic African hinterland, In a Better World by Danish director Susanne Bier couldn’t look more different from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Biutiful, which opened last week in Taipei. It nevertheless shares many qualities with Biutiful and is likely to appeal to a similar audience. The terms “morally serious” and “socially engaged” come to mind a little too readily when watching these films, and while that’s not necessarily detrimental to the important messages they wish to convey, it gives them a hectoring zeal more readily associated with the soapbox or pulpit than with the cinema.
Like Inarritu, Bier deals with the big issues of the human condition, and with In a Better World she considers the moral implications of violence in an international context, spanning sadistic mutilation by an African warlord to schoolyard bullying in suburban Denmark.
The film opens with Anton (Mikael Persbrandt), a Swedish doctor working in war-torn Africa who deals with, among other things, the victims of a local strong man who amuses himself by cutting open the bellies of pregnant women in a betting game over the sex of the child. Anton is struggling to repair his relationship with Marianne (Trine Dyrholm), who he is separated from after an affair. On his infrequent visits back to Denmark, Anton tries to inculcate the virtues of non-violence into his son Elias, the victim of a classmate’s bullying.
Photo courtesy of iFilm
Elias is befriended by Christian (William Johnk Nielsen), a new arrival at the school who has returned to Denmark from London after the death of his mother from cancer. His feelings toward his father are still deeply tainted by the trauma of his mother’s last months, and Christian reacts to the bullying of Elias with such violence and determination that the police are brought in to investigate.
Bier sets all this up with great assurance, like a scientist setting up a laboratory experiment, or a theologian drawing up the premises for a syllogism about the nature of the soul. The quality of the acting and the finely observed details of human behavior save the film from being a tiresome exercise in narrative construction, yet one cannot help but be aware of the careful laying out of each structural element. Anton is portrayed as the flawed saint and despite the best efforts of Persbrandt, he never quite escapes from his assigned role as spokesman for liberal tolerance and sympathetic understanding.
Despite this formulaic quality, Bier’s film and the sentiments she tries to express are far from simple. All Anton’s humanity does not prevent him from becoming a party to an act of horrific violence, which is carefully juxtaposed against his efforts in Denmark to preach mutual understanding. From machete hacking to a slap in the face in a playground, the individual acts of violence are tremendously powerful, bursting out from the otherwise deliberate, and dialogue-heavy, pacing of the film.
Anton’s doctrine of non-confrontation is contrasted against the sense of righteous anger that fills the heart of Christian, who casts himself as an avenger, leading to his finding violent ways of making his vengeance felt — from hard words to his father, who he accuses of desiring his mother’s death, to the building of a pipe bomb intended to show that those who do wrong shall be punished.
The terrifying fragility of even the most comfortable existence is telegraphed by Bier through the second half of the film with a hectoring insistence that gets in the way of the drama. Both child actors put in very effective performances, but the director seems unable to quiet her own voice and let the characters speak for themselves.
This is the greatest weakness of In a Better World. Though it tells and shows much that is interesting, the film occupies an intellectual realm that never quite achieves the cinematic feat of empathy.
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