An introduction to Danish cinema
Our local Blockbuster has about quadrupled its foreign film collection
so it fills two sets of shelves now and comprises more than "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Cyrano de Bergerac," which is a good start.
I picked a Danish film from 1993 called "Pretty Boy" ("Smukke dreng," and no, I'm
not going to attempt to pronounce it) because I'd never seen a Danish
film before and, yes, because the boy on the cover was indeed pretty.
Luckily the rental case was standard white-yellow-and-blue Blockbuster
with small print or else I'd've been tempted to wait for a time when I wasn't browsing
with my father. Yes, I am that pathetic.
Nick is a very pretty 13-year-old from Copenhagen who's run away from home temporarily and goes to live with a hesitant astronomy professor, Ralph, in exchange for "services rendered." They bond for a while over a mutual love of the stars -- it's sweet, if a little disturbing -- but Nick gets tossed back on the street when Ralph's girlfriend comes home. He finds a few other men and makes enough money to keep sending flowers and toys to his mother and brothers, but keeps coming back to gaze up at Ralph's loft wistfully. He tries going home but his frizzy-haired, mascara-laden mother is too busy entertaining male guests to pay attention; when he calls from a pay phone, she actually asks him to wait another night before coming back. So he ends up falling in with a vicious pack of young hustlers that includes a girl, Renée, who dresses as a boy when she isn't minding her mother's produce stall. They know how to work the trade, and when any of them takes a beating from a client, the group descends on the perpetrator with an array of weapons and only a sliver of mercy. Most of the movie is about Nick growing closer to Renée and further from Ralph, though it's not that simple.
It was scary, and funny, and violent, and tender. Scary in the things it said about youth, about the violence kids are capable of, especially when they lack strong role models, and the adults they could respect can't muster the fortitude to stand up to them. Scary that a boy could be sleeping around the city with strange men in the weeks leading up to his confirmation -- let alone what he does the night after the service (the end of the movie). Scary that the group could be so tight-knit and at the same time so ruthless, with their own members as much as with their misbehaving clients; when one of the gang comes "home" infected with AIDS, they throw him out without a tear. Funny in moments like when Nick and Renée have to pause in front of the men's and women's locker rooms at a public swimming pool before going through the right doors. Or when they pay a visit to Nick's grandmother, whom he hasn't seen since he was a toddler, and Renée leaves the room after kissing him:
Granny: He looks very nice.
Nick: Who, Renée?
Granny: You look like a proper courting couple.
Nick: Renée is a girl, Granny.
Granny: Oh? I thought maybe you'd turned into one of those people like on TV.
Violent in that from the first scene, the movie didn't shrink from showing the punches and bruises and blood and saliva of fights in dirty bathrooms or semi-consensual domination. And sweet and sad in all the moments in between. It was understated. It was only 83 minutes long but it took its time. And (though this has nothing to do with the film's merit) I liked listening to the cadence of the language, even though a lot of the lines were muttered and murmured and mumbled and spat and otherwise barely discernible. Hey, Danish lurkers -- do all of you speak that quickly and quietly? :)
In short, good movie, go rent it, unless you've seen it already, in which case, let's chat!
Nick is a very pretty 13-year-old from Copenhagen who's run away from home temporarily and goes to live with a hesitant astronomy professor, Ralph, in exchange for "services rendered." They bond for a while over a mutual love of the stars -- it's sweet, if a little disturbing -- but Nick gets tossed back on the street when Ralph's girlfriend comes home. He finds a few other men and makes enough money to keep sending flowers and toys to his mother and brothers, but keeps coming back to gaze up at Ralph's loft wistfully. He tries going home but his frizzy-haired, mascara-laden mother is too busy entertaining male guests to pay attention; when he calls from a pay phone, she actually asks him to wait another night before coming back. So he ends up falling in with a vicious pack of young hustlers that includes a girl, Renée, who dresses as a boy when she isn't minding her mother's produce stall. They know how to work the trade, and when any of them takes a beating from a client, the group descends on the perpetrator with an array of weapons and only a sliver of mercy. Most of the movie is about Nick growing closer to Renée and further from Ralph, though it's not that simple.
It was scary, and funny, and violent, and tender. Scary in the things it said about youth, about the violence kids are capable of, especially when they lack strong role models, and the adults they could respect can't muster the fortitude to stand up to them. Scary that a boy could be sleeping around the city with strange men in the weeks leading up to his confirmation -- let alone what he does the night after the service (the end of the movie). Scary that the group could be so tight-knit and at the same time so ruthless, with their own members as much as with their misbehaving clients; when one of the gang comes "home" infected with AIDS, they throw him out without a tear. Funny in moments like when Nick and Renée have to pause in front of the men's and women's locker rooms at a public swimming pool before going through the right doors. Or when they pay a visit to Nick's grandmother, whom he hasn't seen since he was a toddler, and Renée leaves the room after kissing him:
Granny: He looks very nice.
Nick: Who, Renée?
Granny: You look like a proper courting couple.
Nick: Renée is a girl, Granny.
Granny: Oh? I thought maybe you'd turned into one of those people like on TV.
Violent in that from the first scene, the movie didn't shrink from showing the punches and bruises and blood and saliva of fights in dirty bathrooms or semi-consensual domination. And sweet and sad in all the moments in between. It was understated. It was only 83 minutes long but it took its time. And (though this has nothing to do with the film's merit) I liked listening to the cadence of the language, even though a lot of the lines were muttered and murmured and mumbled and spat and otherwise barely discernible. Hey, Danish lurkers -- do all of you speak that quickly and quietly? :)
In short, good movie, go rent it, unless you've seen it already, in which case, let's chat!