Mifune (1999)

Minor SpoilersIn Copenhagen, the yuppie Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) has just married Claire (Sofie Gråbøl), the daughter of his employer. While in his honeymoon, he is informed that his father has just died. He had omitted his origin from the country and the existence of his family, composed of his father and his mental-ill brother Rud (Jesper Asholt), to his wife and his father-in-law. Claire wants to travel with him for the funeral, but he says that it is not necessary and he would travel alone and be back to Copenhagen in a couple of days. Once in the simple family's farm, he feels the need of a housekeeper to help him with his retard brother. The young prostitute Liva Psilander (the gorgeous Iben Hjejle) applies for the job and is hired by Kresten. Liva brings her troubled brother Bjarke Psilander (Emil Tarding) to live with them. Meanwhile, Claire arrives in the night without previous notice, and when she sees Liva drinking wine with Kresten, she returns to Copenhagen. Kresten is fired by her father and she asks for the divorce. Kresten and Liva falls in love for each other, and Rud and Bjarke becomes friends, forming a weird family. This Dogma 95 film is a delightful Danish dramatic romance. The story is very nice, without being corny. The title of this movie is a game of samurai between Kresten and Rud, and a homage to Toshirô Mifune, the Kikuchiyo from `The Seven Samurai'. The beauty and the smile of Iben Hjejle highlight in a movie without any special effect or lighting. Another great example that it is possible to make a great low-budget movie. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): `Mifune'

I've really enjoyed all the movies I've seen from the Dogme movement, and Mifune is no exception. Stripped down of all the special effects and glitz and glamour that has subverted the movie business in Hollywood, the film makers who adhere to the Dogme principles are able to focus on those elements that really make a film worth watching and memorable - good characters, good acting, good dialogue, tight editing.All it takes is a small cast and crew and minimal technology to add these things to a movie, and create a work of art that stands unique and challenging. So why is it that George Lucas with his billions of dollars and millions of special effects technicians can't manage to get these fundamental elements right? (To pick one recent prominent example of Hollywood squandering time, money and talent).Thank goodness there are still places in the world where the cynical marketing dollar doesn't control all, and real movies can still be made!

Terrific acting and mesmerising locations make this an easy movie to love. Denmark's hazy, almost dreamy summer light lends a touch of magic to this tale of a prodigal son's enforced return.The main characters are exquisitely drawn. Berthelsen plays newlywed Copenhagen yuppie Kresten, who has denied the very existence of his family in far-off (or so he thought) Lolland. Rud, his retarded brother, is brought to us with great sensitivity and charm in a show-stealing performance by Jesper Asholt. Iben Hjejle sparkles as Liva, a city prostitute with steadily mounting problems, many of which can be traced directly to her brattish younger brother Bjarke, for whom she seems to have assumed parental responsibility.Before long (and to nobody's great surprise), we see these two pairs of siblings brought crashing together by life's twists and turns. Kresten is summoned back to Lolland in the middle of his honeymoon by news of his father's death. He soon sees that Rud is incapable of looking after himself and is forced to stay on temporarily in Lolland. His advertisement for a housekeeper attracts Liva's attention just as she finally wears out her welcome in Copenhagen. Bjarke lasts about five minutes in the big city without her, and soon follows her to Lolland.The interplay between these makeshift cohabitees is wonderful, particularly Rud's relationships with Kresten and Bjarke. Endless summer evenings spent in Lolland's rural idyll with these four for company will soon have you believing in crop circles and cellar-dwelling samurai heroes.On the back of some audacious tricks to get us this far, Kragh-Jacobsen delivers a transcendent hour or so in the middle of this film that reminds me of just why I love the cinema so much. Having created this beautiful, shimmering landscape (both emotional and physical), and reminded us that love for your family - and perhaps, in a special way, your siblings - is its own reward, the movie finds it has nowhere particular left to go. There are supporting characters - some of them reasonably well-formed, others not - but once our quartet is established and the relationships between them start to blossom, any involvement from outsiders is unwelcome, unfulfilling and only likely to bring trouble.It's no spoiler, for I mean it purely in structural terms, when I say that we are brought to a bumpy and unsatisfying ending to this ride through the lives of four people we soon grow to care a great deal about.For me, though, despite its shortcomings, Mifune was a beautiful movie that I'm sure I'll watch again, many times.

A movie by Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. The third movie directed according to the principles of Dogma95. A touching story that I particularly liked: about a carreerist who suddenly realizes that his idea of leaving his wretched family behind and starting a new life is wrong, about a hooker who is trying to escape from the harrassing phone calls by an aberrant and their brothers who are also miserable and helpless. As the story develops these people manage to realize that even though they cannot change the harshness of their life, relying on each other's empathy and love can make things easier. As the hooker says at one point (no guarantee on the exact words): "Life is s*** and you will taste it with large spoons every day, but this is not an excuse to hurt the ones who are close to you". The happy ending suggests that there is hope for these people: I would be inclined to believe so...