A piece of good news for fans of Scandinavian crime fiction: Italian Shoes, a wonderful novel about a retired Swedish doctor by Swedish writer Henning Mankell (see image) will become a movie! And it seems Kenneth Branagh will be directing it.

Italian Shoes, adapted by Richard Cottan, follows the tale of an elderly former surgeon reunited with an old flame he had abandoned many years ago. Dying of cancer, she asks him to fulfill a promise he made nearly 40 years ago. To fulfill the promise, the two of them sets out on a long journey full of surprises through a wintery Sweden.

Swedish Yellow Bird, which also produced the Swedish version of The Gird With the Dragon Tattoo and the other Millennium movies based on Stieg Larsson’s books, is in development with Andy Harries’ Left Bank Pictures, according to Variety.

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This movie from 2004, is about the story of a handful of desperate people whose paths cross on the hottest day of the year in Oslo.

Frode and Milla have their first child, but learn he will not live long without an expensive operation they cannot afford. Bobbie-Pop is a faded singer who tries to commit suicide. Leon is an institutionalized mental patient, who hopes to keep a 10-year-old date on his birthday with his teenage sweetheart. Leon’s brother, Trygve, gets a weekend leave from prison to be with Leon on his birthday, but plans on using the furlough to escape. Overseeing Leon and protecting him is his guardian angel Vidar, Leon’s best buddy at the institution, who sees things no one else can see, and who may be able to save everyone – except himself.

It has a little bit of everything – humor, tear jerker, babies and two young boys, mystery, romance, family problems, and even mystical elements. The amazing thing is that they are all woven together with extremely unusual mastery for a movie. It even has a surprise ending that, even though you see it happen in the beginning of the movie, you don’t realize it until the climax!

– Reader review by Artist & Author on amazon.com

The various characters’ lives intersect several times in the course of the film, without knowing who everyone is nor what impact they have on each other, but their thoughts and actions have a tremendous effect on one another.

The movie is powerful also because of the performances, which are really good. A somewhat surreal movie that will leave you pondering!

• Actors: Trond Espen Seim, Jan Gunnar Roise, Evy Elise Kasseth Rosten, Aksel Hennie, Stig Henrik Hoff
• Directors: Erik Poppe
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: Norwegian
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Film Movement
• DVD Release Date: February 27, 2007
• Run Time: 124 minutes

Links to Hawaii, Oslo at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

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Brothers is a emotionally charged movie that tells a hard but plausible story. It is simple yet very powerful story of the Prodigal Son. In the 2004 Danish film Brothers (top left cover), directed by the very talented Susanne Bier, the story was given a vigorous new interpretation.

The story is about two brothers who seem to be opposites. One brother, Michael (very well played by by Ulrich Thomsen), is a Major in the Danish army. He’s a good-natured person who loves his family and always tries to do the right thing. The other brother, Jannik (played by Kaas), has just spent time in jail for a bank robbery and an assault on one of the bank’s female employees. He likes to drink and fight, and is a bit of a loose cannon. Michael has always been the one who succeeded and got all of the positive attention, while Jannik remained the black sheep of the family.

When Michael’s unit is sent to Afghanistan to fight, he’s in a helicopter crash and presumed dead. Jannik begins to help Michael’s wife, Sarah (outstandingly well played by Connie Nielsen), and her two daughters as a way for all of them to deal with their enormous grief. Eventually, Jannik and Sarah fall in love, only to have Michael return from the grave, which creates a rather unique situation for everybody.

While Michael was held prisoner in Afghanistan, he was forced to do something horrible in order to stay alive. Something that now, after he has returned, completely destroys him. Memories and guilt that he cannot push aside – and that, like a bomb, keep ticking away inside him. As a result, he is a very different man when he returns to his family.

In 2009, Irish director Jim Sheridan did an American remake of Brothers (second cover on left). The story is the same, and the remake features Tobey Maguire as Captain Sam Cahill, Jake Gyllenhaal as his brother Tommy, and Natalie Portman as Sam’s wife Grace. They all perform extremely well, but I prefer Ulrich Thomsen’s acting in the Danish version to that of Tobey Maguire. The remake stays close to the original, but still – in my opinion as well as that of a number of reviewers – it loses some of its true grit. However, in both versions the emotional devastation hits very hard.

I hold a slight preference for the Danish version – probably because it feels more authentic and because it is a little tougher.

However, the acting is superb in both versions, the actors give tremendous life and breath to their characters. And the filming, too, is excellent in both movies.

Brothers is a film that I found very interesting and intense. Strongly recommended!

Product Details (Danish version)

• Actors: Connie Nielsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Sarah Juel Werner, Rebecca Løgstrup
• Directors: Susanne Biel
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Danish
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: September 20, 2005
• Run Time: 117 minutes

Links to Brothers (Danish version) at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

Product Details (US Version)

• Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Patrick Flueger, Sam Shepard
• Directors: Jim Sheridan
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Lionsgate
• DVD Release Date: March 23, 2010
• Run Time: 105 minutes

Links to Brothers (US version) at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

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There’s a lot of hype about David Fincher’s version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo currently. Steig Larsson’s books have entertained the whole world, and the Hollywood remake is getting lots of attention all over the world too. A lot of sites have published a poster with Rooney Mara that shows her topless (“NUDE” says Huffingston Post, but that’s not true). The Sun publishes the same image, saying “Daniel’s co-star gets her tats out”. You can see the more “innocent” version of the poster below.

Perhaps more interesting is the fact that the movie trailer for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo now has been posted on the official site for the movie. It’s quite a trailer – very good, hip music and very cool. You may want to have a look at it, I liked it!

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In Adam’s Apples, Ivan (excellently played by Mads Mikkelsen) is an insanely optimistic and perhaps somewhat naive preacher. He tries, to the best of his abilities, to help reform convicts, and brings them in to help around the remote, rural church he ministers to.

It’s a fascinating movie, perhaps hilarious or perhaps profound. Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen. And very good! Here is the trailer (see our review of Adam’s Apples as well):

Links to Adam’s Apples (DVD) at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

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This is an utterly charming Swedish movie, romantic, funny, warm and in some ways an ode to love and art. As It is in Heaven was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2005 Academy Awards®.

It tells the story of Daniel Dareus, a successful international conductor who returns to his childhood village in Sweden. Soon thereafter, the local church choir seeks him out to solicit his advice. He can’t refuse, and from that point on nothing in the village will ever be the same again. As the amateur choir develops and grows, he is drawn to the people of his old hometown, makes friends and even finds love.

This beautiful and engaging film is currently one of my all time favorites, As It Is In Heaven is a wonderful story about life and love that is sure to inspire and delight. It stars Michael Nyqvist, of the Millennium trilogy movies, who plays excellently in this movie as well; perhaps this is his best performance ever – it truly is stunning. This quiet movie simply is beautiful, touching, and has an important message as well. A nice movie to view, and quite comparable to other excellent Scandinavian movies like My Life as a Dog and Babettes Feast.

This is a film of that special kind that digs beneath the surface of human experience, and it also demonstrates a sincere belief in the good of people and liberating power of art. It is a story of a group of individuals learning to listen to one another and harmonize, and about release of judgment and fears. Very entertaining, very authentic and in some ways quite profound – a movie that makes you feel, and one you will continue to carry with you when it is over.

The movie is in Swedish with English subtitles.

Product Details (US Edition)

• Actors: Michael Nyqvist, Frida Hallgren
• Directors: Kay Pollak
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Swedish
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: KINO INTERNATIONAL
• DVD Release Date: February 2, 2010
• Run Time: 132 minutes

Links to As it is in Heaven (DVD) at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

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The Scandinavian movie industry is on the move. Following the phenomenal world wide success of Scandinaivian crime fiction writers like Steig Larsson, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo, Camilla Läckberg, Hakan Nesser and others, there is now more focus on and demand for Scandinavian movies as well. According to Hollywood reporter, “In the market, thanks to the cross-over success of the Millennium films and Swedish thriller Easy Money, Scandinavian titles are as red hot as their stories are cold blooded.”

It seems the movie industry in Scandinavia is responding rapidly to the increasing demand. There is a lot of activity for the moment and a long, long list of new movies in the pipeline. Here are some of them:

• Lars von Trier’s Melancholia has bee shown in Cannes. For the moment Lars von Trier is a little uncertain about his movie. He doesn’t know whether he likes it or not – he says he “may have made his first mainstream movie”. Here is the review of Melancholia by Guardian. The reviewed were mixed – some reviews thought it excellent, others not so much. On a slightly different note, von Trier also kicked up a lot of controversy when he stated on a press conference that he was a Nazi (he later withdrew that statement).
• Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki is showing his new comedy-drama Le Havre in Cannes shortly.
• The Danish Director Nicolas Winding Refn, who has worked on
  many of Lars von Trier’s movies and is known for his Pusher trilogy, is is in Cannes right now with his new movie Drive.
• Norwegian director Joachim Trier is in Cannes with a follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut Reprise, titled Oslo, August 31
• Just as Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman is being released in the US and Headhunters, the movie based on the novel with the same title, is being shown for the first time in Cannes, Nesbo has signed a deal for the movie rights for The Snowman. The right were bought by Working Title. Nesbo says: “For a crime writer they had the best pitch,” Nesbo told The Hollywood Reporter. “They said, ‘We produced Fargo.’ I said: ‘I’m listening.’”
• Iceland’s Runar Runarsson is showing his Volcano in Cannes. It’s said to contain some hot-and-heavy old-age sex.
• Easy Money, based on a crime fiction novel by Swedish Jens Lapidus, has been picked up for the U.S. by The Weinstein Co. The right for a U.S. remake has been bought by Warner Bros. It is set to star Zac Efron. And now sequels to the film will be filmed in 2011, and the first is scheduled to be released in 2012, followed by the second in 2013.
• The talented and smart Lars von Trier has bought the right to movies about Department Q, based on the novels by Danish crime fiction writer Jussi Adler-Olsen.
• Also screening in Cannes these days are Out of Bounds from Danish first-timer Frederikke Aspockbows and Swedish Ruben Ostlund’s Play
• Swedish best-selling crime series The Fjallbacka Murders, based on novels by Camilla Lackberg, seems to be in the making
• Yellow Bird is completing a new series of Irene Huss movies, based on books by Helene Tursten, and preparing a new series about Annika Bengtzon, based on novels by Liza Maklund
• A Royal Affair, an 18th century period epic starring Mads Mikkelsen and Alicia Vikander from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, adopted by screenwriter Nikolaj Arcel, about a fatal affair between the Danish queen and her German physician, is in the making.
• David Fincher is doing a remake of the Girl with Dragon Tattoo, with a cast full of stars

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I watched A Somewhat Gentle Man yesterday. It is a very interesting and fascinating movie. I don’t really know what to call it – it is a noir feel good, or a tragical comedy or perhaps a funny crime fiction. Something more or less like that.

A very original and strange movie, with the strangest group of characters I have seen in a long time and excellent dialogues. Stellan Skarsgård (or Skarsgaard) was magnificent – I think this was one his his best performances ever. He played the somewhat mundane, somewhat gentle, somewhat mild and well mannered murderer Ulrik to perfection. And his oh-so-unsexy sex scenes were so beautifully underplayed. Great job by director Hans Petter Moland too! The ending was very surprising and just right (see the full review of A Somewhat Gentle Man).

Here is the official trailer! Enjoy!

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The Danish director Susanne Bier is an interesting and very talented movie maker. As we all know, her In a Better World won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011. So far she has made 11 movies, the most well-known are the romantic comedy The One and Only (1999),  Brothers (2004), and After the Wedding (2006). Bier has said “My first job as a filmmaker is to not make a boring film.” So far she seems to have been good at avoiding that!

In an interview, New York Times writes that

Despite the painful situations she explores, Ms. Bier says she is scrupulous about ending her movies on a hopeful note. And she makes it a point not to alienate audiences. “I do believe that movies need to have an ability to communicate,” she says. “For me moviemaking is not pure art. It is a mass medium, even if it should be artistically coherent.

I have not yet seen In a Better World, but I have seen two of the other movies by Susanne Bier,  Brothers and After the Wedding, and liked them both. Naturally, I am looking forward to seeing the Academy Award winner!

Here is the official trailer for In a Better World:

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I Am Dina, based on Norwegian writer Herbjorg Wassmo’s brilliant novel Dina’s Book, is a haunting, breathtaking and engaging story about a young girl in Northern Norway during the 1860s who killed her mother in a accident when she was five years old. Her father (Bjorn Floberg) blamed her for his wife’s death, and she was denied the love of her father and sent away. She became a willful, strong, stunningly beautiful girl who behaved like a tomboy. She lived her life more of less by her own rules since the age of 5.

When Dina (Maria Bonnevie) was fifteen she was married away to a rich friend of her father – Jacob (Gerard Depardieu) who was carried away by her extraordinary beauty. He brings her with him to his little “kingdom” – Reinsnes.

Dina quickly proved to be too much for the aging Jacob. He taught her about sex, but she quickly started to want more of it than he could give. And she would stay up at all hours and play her cello and deprive him of his sleep. Dina seemingly is strong, independent and fierce. However, she is also a young woman haunted by daemons.

The scenography in this movie is outstanding. Visually as well as in terms of content, the movie is explosive and mesmerizing, visually spectacular, highly disturbing and set against a soundtrack of enchanting music.

Maria Bonnevie delivers a haunting and unnerving performance in the role of Dina. It may well be her best performance ever. Her tormented, otherworldly countenance is both frightening, beautiful and erotic, and the camera makes good use of her features with continual close-ups of her expressive face. Also, Bjorn Floberg (Dina’s father) and Mads Mikkelsen (Niels) are great, and Gerard Depardieu is excellent as Jacob.

I Am Dina is an interesting, remarkable and unique film, an epic, and a movie you will love if you are a fan of movies such as Babette’s Feast, The Piano and My Life as a Dog. It’s a captivating piece of cinema! I greatly enjoyed it.

Product Details (US Version)

• Actors: Maria Bonnevie, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Eccleston, Pernilla August, Bjørn Floberg
• Directors: Ole Bornedal
• Writers: Ole Bornedal, Herbjørg Wassmo, Jonas Cornell
• Producers: Anne Ingvar, Arve Figenschow, Axel Helgeland, Eric Altmeyer
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• DVD Release Date: March 24, 2009
• Run Time: 125 minutes

Links to I Am Dina (DVD) at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

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