52 Films Directed By Women Vol 1: 14. A SECOND CHANCE (Director: Susanne Bier)
Bier makes films from the perspective of the Danish middle
class. They have nice spacious houses, are well-attired and shower every
morning after sex that almost certainly involves jump cuts – Bier loves jump
cuts. Her camera keeps close to the action, following the actors. She doesn’t
do subjective point of view shots. Her characters are contrasted with the grimy
milieu in which they operate. A Bier protagonist will typically appear to be
the guardian of moral good sense – just, noble. However, they are exposed as
flawed and weak.
In A Second Chance, Game
of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays Andreas, a cop who has a
beautiful young wife, Anna (Maria Bonnevie) and a baby, Alexander, who won’t go
to sleep. Andreas and Anna fuss over who will take the baby out for a drive (in
his case) or a walk (in hers) late at night to lull it to sleep. Andreas is
investigating a junkie, Tristan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) who has just got of prison
and who appears to be abusing his girlfriend and their young baby, who is found
lying in its own faeces. Social services are unable to act because the mother
hasn’t been declared incompetent, even though there is ample evidence that she
is using. One night, Alexander doesn’t wake up. Andreas wants to call an
ambulance; Anna begs him not to. He agrees, parks his car outside a hospital,
phones his partner (who is drunk in a bar and unable to respond) and then
decides to break into Tristan’s apartment, switching his dead son for a live
but soiled baby.
Does Andreas think his wife won’t notice? This barely
becomes an issue. Tristan discovers the corpse and panics. His girlfriend
insists, ‘it is not my child’. Tristan comes up with an audacious plan, one
which brings him back face to face with Andreas. Meanwhile Andreas’ wife’s
psychosis takes a turn for the worse.
Bier and Jensen are great at putting their protagonist in
jeopardy. But after the first few developments, the film runs out of steam.
Bier is too honest to keep a plot twisting for its own sake. She is not a noir
director, but a humanist, extending compassion where it is due.
What do you learn from the film? Mainly that the Danish
police have a liberal view of ‘extenuating circumstances’. The second chance is
extended to a different character and is taken in one of the few happy endings
to take place in a do-it-yourself retail warehouse.
In a Hollywood film from a male director, the protagonist
would own their own learning. In Bier’s world, the characters need to be shown,
to be helped. Their epiphany does not allow them to be the master of their
fate. In that sense, Bier is a realist. The acting style is naturalistic. The
drama sails close to but never into melodrama.
Bier earned a ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ Oscar for her 2010 drama, In A Better World. Following in the same
vein, A Second Chance is a less
satisfying but moderately accomplished follow-up.
Reviewed on rental
DVD, Saturday 28 November 2015; with thanks to Haringey Library
Originally published on Bitlanders.com
Comments
Post a Comment