Hævnen / In a Better World (2010) – 3/5

Watching this did not feel like heaven to me, but overall it was sufficient

„Hævnen“ or „In a Better World“ is a co-production between Denmark and Sweden from 2010, so this film is easily over a decade old now and it was shown a few nights ago again on the big screen on the occasion of a film festival presenting some of Denmark’s most known movies from relatively recent years until way back to the past even into the first half of the 20th century. This one here is not super recent, but also not old by any means. Among the more recent inclusions. The language you will hear most during the watch is Danish, but there are others included as well. For example, at the very start you will hear a great deal of English as the film there is set in a place far away from Denmark and one protagonist there works as a doctor and he communicated in English with the locals. But before we dive deeper into the story, let’s stay with the basics for a little longer: The director is Susanne Bier and she is over 60 now and has been in the industry since around 1990, which means over 30 years now and back then when this one here got made, she was also present for 20 years already. She did not write the screenplays for all her works, but for this one here she did. She got help from Anders Thomas Jensen who was already an Oscar winner (plus two more nominations) back in 2010 and as prolific as a writer can be and also Per Nielsen who seemingly has written scripts for a long, long time already before that, even if his main profession was probably always in the production department. So definitely a lot of competence and experience combined with this trio.

As for the cast, things don’t look too different. The list feels a bit mixed-up, but Ulrich Thomsen has been among Denmark’s most successful actors for a long time and Trine Dyrholm is also among the most famous performers from Denmark. This cannot be said about Mikael Persbrandt, but this is only because he originates from Sweden and not from Denmark, so you will find three very experienced characters behind the camera here and three (plus others) in front of it during this film that runs for a bit over 110 minutes, but is not yet super close to the two-hour mark. I will not go into detail any further about the rest of the cast and leave that to the Danish film buffs instead. I am sure they are more familiar than myself with the actors there, even if my country shares a border with Denmark and I have seen a handful films of course too. One thing that must be mentioned here though is the gigantic awards recognition, „gigantic“ maybe not in the sense of sheer quantity, but rather in the sense of where it won. Susanne Bier won for Best Director at the European Film Awards. And the film won the Golden Globe and Academy Award in the best foreign language category, which is something every non-American director dreams of in a way I’m sure. Ironically, back at home, the movie scored many nominations too at the national film awards in Denmark, but won only once for Best Actress, which is also a bit of a surprising victory as Dyrholm did not feel too memorable to me here. For Bier, it was enough attention though as she started shooting (or actually she did so before already) Hollywood films afterwards, worked with Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and also won a Primetime Emmy.

Now, we shall look at the film at hand though and at the plot we have here: There are several different key components and factors that are elaborated on in here: One is certainly the element of violence. We basically have two boys in here, one of them is new at the other’s school and they become friends. One of them is bullied by other kids and the other stands up for him and as a consequence becomes a target too. However, he is not gonna take any of it and really escalates when he heavily beats up one of the boys when the latter is isolated and even puts a knife to his throat. That was quite something. From that moment on, he is of course no longer getting bullied. On the contrary, the brutes even try to include him in his group, but he stays loyal to his original friend. The one boy who acted so violent lost his mother to cancer before the film started, so this may explain his outburst a little bit. He was definitely not in a good place mentally, which is shown already through the idea of him building a bomb, but it shows also at the end when there is the danger that he commits suicide because he thinks he killed his only friend with said bomb. Luckily, he did not, but there is even some happy ending closure in here. The boy is saved, the two are friends again and even one of the two boys‘ parents, who were pretty much going through a hard time and were no longer an item, might be getting together again. Perhaps slightly too much of a happy ending this was even with how it all got solved somehow, but it kinda fits the title in a way, the international title that is because the Danish title does not translate as „hope“ or „heaven“ as you could think, but it means „revenge“, so a far more aggressive title than the almost pacifist meaning of the English-language title.

However, there is a great deal of violence in here. Also when the action takes place outside Scandinavia. Just look at the big Black warlord or whatever he is, in any case a man who has made a career through crime and intimidation and he also is not scared of murder. We understand he does horrible things to young girls and yet karma strikes and he is injured heavily himself or suffering basically from an open leg and there were maggots in there already. Dozens. This was great makeup work for sure. So gross, looked very real. The conflict if the doctor should help this man despite his background is one that is at the center of the movie. He agrees to treat him under the condition that the other guy gets rid of his firearms and that includes the firearms his helpers are equipped with too. Things take a different turn then when one of the girls I just talked about dies and the Black dude steps in the room and makes fun of her, even makes statements linked to necrophilia and rape, when talking to the doctor who is in charge of making him healthy again. The consequences are brutal for one of them. This was really the first situation in which the male (grown-up) protagonist loses his cool and accepts violence and revenge you could say too in a way. Before that, what comes to mind a lot is of course the conflict between him and the father of a younger boy and said father makes violent threats against the protagonist and the latter does not fight back. At least not physically, but also not really verbally. He tries to look like an honorable role model to his son and the other boy, but the kids are not really too happy with that and think that the father of one of them is rather weak and a coward. So they decide to take things into their own hands and have revenge on the grown-up who insulted one of their dads repeatedly. This is then the tense action that will have you on the edge of your seat in the second half for the most part. It was really horrible (in the sense of shocking, the film was obviously not horrible at all) when we see the jogger and her daughter approach the moment the bomb is about to detonate.

But I found one other segment before that also really interesting, namely when we watch two characters during a webcam conversation and the boy tells his father about the bomb that is going to explode and there was a poor internet connection that exact moment and the father ended the conversation in a fairly abrupt manner because of that and you could wonder if he understood exactly what was going on, but did not want to get in the way of the two boys having their revenge on the man who humiliated him or if it was really just the connection. If what happened there at his workplace far, far away from Denmark turned him into a different man. Or if he really did not understand what his son was telling him because of the buffering. We can’t say for sure, but there was an element of karma if he decided to watch and let it happen. Before that he watched and let it happen what the villagers did to the evil guy and when he decided to watch (if he did) or the two boys decided to watch the explosion, then his son (i.e. One of the boys) suffered an injury that could have been life-threatening. As I stated earlier, it all went well though and the kid did not end up with permanent injuries in the long run. Still, it was a day they will always remember and who knows, maybe the boys will stay friends for the rests of their lives. In terms of remembering this film, I would say I will maybe, but not all the details. It was a good movie and I am glad I saw it, but the awards attention was clearly a bit on the exaggerated side. Maybe not the best year in the foreign language category. Or they picked/submitted the wrong movies. That is possible as well. The strengths are still more frequent than the weaknesses, but overall I think it is a good, but not great film. The only great moment was maybe the scene with the explosion towards the end. The rooftop rescue was more of a solid epilogue then. That’s all then, even if a few more scenes could get discussed. Like I felt the dog we see on a few occasions (inside the car) could get blown up, but didn’t happen. „Haevnen“ gets a thumbs-up from me. Worth checking out. I wonder if Lars von Trier would agree.