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• After The Wedding on DVD (2006)
  Starring: Mads Mikkelsen,  Sidse Babett Knudsen,  Rolf Lassgard
  Director: Susanne Bier
  Certificate:
  expertly handled melodrama is a kind of critique on our excessive behavior (which is composed of how we imagine we are behaving- always hyped up), and if played right, draws us deeply in but also allows us to room to contemplate the emotion...the best of two worlds. when jorgen, plotting husband, howls at the world in his wife's presence that he does not want to die, it is all of us - and we'd do the same if we could - arrange things how we like after our disappearance, because we want really to still be there. excess to the point of impersonality is the name of the game here - every trick in the book to wrench tears is played, except it does not make us weep - it makes us appreciate the underlying emotion of all our lives even if we decide not to attend to it - the daughter witnesses her new husband's infidelity in silence - told as flashback - the little boy left behind is cold when our hero asks him to return to denmark with him but at same time, he slaps baseball hat on backwards, and adorns his pseudo father the same. in this film, blood will out and it's thicker than water - and i guess we all feel that. this is an absorbing film not quite hitting on the theme the director says it is - about control - but more about fear of death that haunts our lives. the acting makes it convincing in a way i bet the script only hinted at. very worthwhile and artistic film - of a sub-genre of melodrama that is entirely worthy. Rolf, the actor playing Jorgen and the actor playing Jacob at center of story are superb - better than anyone else - highly recommend!
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